by Budge Burgess

Created on: April 04, 2009

Robots existed in literature and the human imagination long before they existed in fact; significantly, the term 'robotics' was coined by a science fiction writer, Isaac Asimov, in 1942, the word 'robot' having already entered the language, courtesy of another writer, Karel Capek ('robota' is Czech for 'drudgery').

Compared to other 20th century technologies, robots have been slow to develop. They nevertheless became icons of the century largely through their portrayal in cinema, television, and the literature of science fiction. The fame of a handful of fictional robots stands in stark contrast to the virtual anonymity of the real ones in everyday life.

The robot is a creature of the 20th century - there may be a several thousand year old literary and storytelling history of inanimate objects being brought to life, there may have been numerous automatons and moving toys built in earlier centuries, but the true robot does not emerge until the 20th century.

And the contradiction between fact and fiction was made obvious from the start. The first great cinema image of a robot was Maria in "Metropolis" (1927) - an android (a robot resembling a human) which exuded obvious sexuality.

Maria contrasted markedly with the caricature human superimposed upon the first working robot, Westinghouse's Televox, a decidedly primitive device; it could pick up a phone and undertake a few elementary processes.

Westinghouse followed up with Willie Vocalite (1932), a robot which could sit down, stand up, salute, and say a few words, and Elektro (1939) which could walk and would be accompanied by Sparko, a robot dog, at the 1940's World's Fair.

These, of course, were publicity gimmicks: big, clunky, shiny metal, they helped bring robots to wider attention, as did the Tin Man in "Wizard of Oz" (1939) - if the Tin Man was missing a heart, the Westinghouse robots marched to the beat of a very limited technology.

It wasn't until the 1940's that the real genesis of robots occurred. The first electrical computers emerged in Germany, the USA, and Britain. World War 2 and the construction of the Atom Bomb proved powerful stimuli - spurring on work with computers and the production of the first robotic arms to manipulate radioactive materials.

Isaac Asimov, meanwhile, was writing about the fictional world of robots and producing his Three Laws of Robotics, which attempted to regulate the actions of benevolent robots working in the service of mankind.

Asimov portrayed robots as capable of social integration

• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next Page >>