Robots!

A robot is a mechanical or virtual, artificial agent.

It is usually an electromechanical system, which, by its appearance or movements, conveys a sense that it has intent or agency of its own. The word robot can refer to both physical robots and virtual software agents, but the latter are usually referred to as bots to differentiate.

The last property above, the appearance of agency, is important when people are considering whether to call a machine a robot. In general, the more a machine has the appearance of agency, the more it is considered a robot.

The word robot was introduced by Czech writer Karel Rapek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), which premiered in 1920.

The play begins in a factory that makes ‘artificial people’ – they are called robots, but are closer to the modern idea of androids or even clones, creatures who can be mistaken for humans. They can plainly think for themselves, though they seem happy to serve. At issue is whether the robots are being exploited and, if so, what follows?

However, Karel Rapek was not the originator of the word; he wrote a short letter in reference to an article in the Oxford English Dictionary etymology in which he named his brother, painter and writer Josef Rapek, as its actual inventor. In an article in the Czech journal Lidové Noviny in 1933, he also explained that he had originally wanted to call the creatures labori (from Latin labor, work). However, he did not like the word, seeing it as too artificial, and sought advice from his brother Josef, who suggested “roboti.”

The word robot comes from the word robota meaning literally serf labor, and, figuratively, “drudgery” or “hard work” in Czech and Slovak.

The origin of the word is the Old Church Slavonic rabota “servitude” (“work” in contemporary Russian), which in turn comes from the Indo-European root *orbh-. Robot is cognate with the German word Arbeiter (worker).

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