Origin of the species
JA
December 02
According to Mark Peters over at Good Magazine, the first writer to formally introduce the word ‘robot’ to the English language is not, as often thought, Isaac Asimov, but Czech writer Karel Čapek. In 1920, he wrote a play entitled R.U.R. or Rossum’s Universal Robots, which featured ‘artificial creatures that were biological rather than mechanical, created to do crappy jobs’. The term was rooted in the Czech word robota, meaning ‘forced labour’ or ‘drudgery’.
Asimov came into play around twenty years later – including the terms ‘robotics’ and ‘roboticist’ in his 1941 science fiction story ‘Liar!’. In 1942, he also cemented his ideas about The Three Laws, a set of rules for droids later explored in many films and fictions, which stated that:
A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm
A robot must obey any orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law
A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
As Oxford Dictionary of Science Fiction Editor Jeff Prucher points out, robotics is actually one of many scientific phrases that find their origins in science fiction. (The OED’s first scientific reference to robotics was in 1968: ‘Significant technological advances in the field of ‘robotics’ – the use of robots in the field of industrial automation – were announced today’). Certainly, this linguistic and cultural relationship has continued long after Čapek’s, and Asimov’s, advent. Science fiction and popular media have provided the fantasy, the imaginable future, both visionary and disturbing, while technology has doggedly attempted follow. The suffix ‘bot’ has entered popular lexicon, as has Daleks (Dr Who), artificial intelligence, terminators, robocops and droids. Other films and TV shows include of course The Matrix, the replicants of Blade Runner, the Cylons of Battlestar Gallactica, Bender of Futurama, Astro Boy and, my personal favourite, Marvin the Paranoid Android of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy.
Here as well, are some beautiful renditions of manipulated machinery for your viewing:
Illustration by Mikhail Romadin for Your Name? Robot (1979) (via)
Illustration by E. Benyaminson for Hello, I’m Robot! by Stanislav Zigunenko (Russia, 1989). (via)
Illustration by E. Benyaminson for Hello, I’m Robot! by Stanislav Zigunenko (Russia, 1989). (via)
Illustration from Cybernetics A to Z, Mir Publishers, Moscow (1970, 1974) (via)
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Comments
02 Dec 10 at 5:52
Not sure what you mean by “cemented”, but the three laws were already introduced in “Liar!”. Asimov insisted the three laws were co-created with John W. Campbell Jr., the editor of Astounding Science-Fiction, which published “Liar!”.
...02 Dec 10 at 9:15
Yes the laws were in his earlier stories but I was under the impression that the Three Laws listed as above were first published in Astounding Science Fiction via the story ‘Runaround’ in 1942? Do let me know if I’ve got the wrong end of the stick though….
...02 Dec 10 at 11:36
I’ll have to find and look up my copy of “I, Robot” to check.
...02 Dec 10 at 12:03
What a wise set of rules. I wonder if he had any idea how influential they would be… makes him quite a godlike figure, doesn’t it?
...02 Dec 10 at 12:23
@Simon: Cheers, let me know…
@Ampersand: Yes there’s such a wonderful complexity, and even pathos, in them. It’s no wonder they’ve captured the imagination of so many.
...02 Dec 10 at 15:28
I think Asimov added a Zeroth law before he died.
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