Future of robotics

Abstract

Almost everyone is familiar with the word “robot” in our civilized society. A man‐made man first appeared as Talos, a bronze giant of Creta in the remote past of greek mythology. Since ancient times, the robot has been an object of human imagination. Unexpectedly, the word “robot” was used for the first time relatively recently. It was a drama title “Rossum's Universal Robots (RUR)” which Karel Capek, a Czechoslovakian dramatist produced in 1920. “Robot” was a new word which was coined from “robota” which means to work or a serf in Czechoslovakia. Hence, the robot is a man‐made man who works for and serves a human being. In the meantime, the pedigree of automata which started with Heron in about 100 B.C. uninterruptedly continues until today. An outstanding example of all those in existence is the three automata which still please people in a historical museum by the lake of Neuchatel, Switzerland. The automata, which were made in the middle of the 18th century, play the organ, write sentences and draw pictures as if they were alive. (Photo 1).

Citation

Kato, I. (1979), "Future of robotics", Industrial Robot, Vol. 6 No. 1, pp. 15-19. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb004746