The Robot Takeover: 6 Things To Know About the Rise of Robotics

Like many great inventions in history, modern robots first existed in science fiction literature before they materialized in the real world. The word "robot" was first coined by the Czech playwright Karl Capek in 1921, in his hit play, "Rossum's Universal Robots". It comes from the word "rabota", which means "slave labor" in the Old Slavonic language. First modern robots were developed in the second part of the 20th century, but people's fascination with replacing human effort and automating tasks dates back to the Ancient World. In 1979, the Robot Institute of America described a robot officially: "a reprogrammable, multifunctional manipulator designed to move material, parts, tools, or specialized devices through various programmed motions for the performance of a variety of task".