A robot is a virtual or mechanical artificial agent. In practice, it is usually an electro-mechanical machine which is guided by computer or electronic programming, and is thus able to do tasks on its own. Another common characteristic is that by its appearance or movements, a robot often conveys a sense that it has intent or agency of its own.

The word robot was introduced to the public by the Czech interwar writer Karel ?apek in his play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots), published in 1920. The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people called robots, though they are closer to the modern ideas of androids, 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 the consequences of their treatment.

Karel ?apek himself did not coin the word. He wrote a short letter in reference to an etymology in the Oxford English Dictionary in which he named his brother, the painter and writer Josef ?apek, as its actual originator.

In an article in the Czech journal Lidové noviny in 1933, he explained that he had originally wanted to call the creatures labo?i (“workers”, from Latin labor). However, he did not like the word, and sought advice from his brother Josef, who suggested “roboti”. The word robota means literally “work”, “labor” or “corvée”, “serf labor”, and figuratively “drudgery” or “hard work” in Czech and many Slavic languages. Traditionally the robota was the work period a serf (corvée) had to give for his lord, typically 6 months of the year. The origin of the word is the Old Church Slavonic rabota “servitude” (“work” in contemporary Bulgarian and Russian), which in turn comes from the Indo-European root *orbh-. Serfdom was outlawed in 1848 in Bohemia, so at the time ?apek wrote R.U.R., usage of the term robota had broadened to include various types of work, but the obsolete sense of “serfdom” would still have been known.

The word robotics, used to describe this field of study, was coined by the science fiction writer Isaac Asimov. Asimov and John W. Campbell created the “Three Laws of Robotics” which are a recurring theme in his books. These have since been used by many others to define laws used in fact and fiction. Introduced in his 1942 short story “Runaround” the Laws state the following:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.