What is a robot? One of the definitions says that a Robot is a machine with anthropomorphic (human-like) behavior, which partially or completely performs the functions of a person (sometimes an animal) when interacting with the outside world.
Are you wondering where and how the word ROBOT originated?
For the first time the term robot appeared in the play "RUR" (Rossum's Universal Robots, 1917, published in 1921) by the author Karl Czapek in co-authorship with his brother Josef.. In which it tells about the creation of a robot production by father and son.
The word “robot” is Czech, meaning “forced labor” (and is a relative of the Russian word for “work”). Initially, Čapek called his creations “laboratories” from the Latin word labor - work. But then, on the advice of his brother, he changed the name to robot from the Czech word robota - hard forced labor.
The first translation of the play into Russian introduces its own version - "robot".
People began to produce cheap and unpretentious workers for themselves. However, they could produce their own kind and soon filled the entire planet. And so on.
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One of the heroes of the play, CEO of RUR, answering the question “what are robots?” Says: “Robots are not people … they are mechanically better than us, they have incredibly strong intellect, but they have no soul”. This is how a new concept “robot” appeared for the first time, which soon began to play an important role not only in science fiction literature, but also in science and technology.
But, contrary to popular belief, Karel Čapek did not invent this word. In a short letter to the compilers of the Oxford English Dictionary, he names his older brother, artist and writer Josef Czapek, as the actual author of the word "robot."
And here is an excerpt from an article by Karel Chapek, in which this whole story is told in detail by Chapek himself.
; “… It was like this: the idea of the play came to the writer at one inopportune moment. But while she was still warm, he hurried to his older brother Joseph, the artist who stood in front of the easel and painted so that the canvas crackled.
“Listen, Josef,” the writer said, “I have an idea for a play.
- Which one? The artist muttered (he did mutter because he was holding the brush in his mouth at that moment. The author told him the idea as quickly as he could.
“So write it down,” the artist remarked, taking the brush out of his mouth and stopping work on the canvas.
“But,” said the author, “I don’t know what to call these artificial workers. I want to call it Labori, but that seems too pedantic to me.
- Well, call them Robots, - the artist muttered with a brush in his mouth and went to the canvas.
That's how it was. So the word Robot was born …"
The Three Laws of Robotics in Science Fiction are mandatory rules of behavior for robots, first formulated by Isaac Asimov in the short story "Runaround" 1942.
The laws state:
1. A robot cannot harm a person or, by its inaction, allow harm to a person.
2. A robot must obey all orders given by a person, except when these orders are contrary to the First Law.
3. The robot must take care of its safety to the extent that it does not contradict the First and Second Laws.