A robot is a machine that can carry out instructions without requiring active help from some connected intelligence.

The word robot was coined by a Czech writer named Carol Chappick in his 1920 play, R-U-R, though he later

claimed that his brother was the one who actually came up with the term to be used in the play.

In this context, robot was derived from the Slavic word robata, which meant forced laborer.

But the concept of a pseudo-life form that is artificial and which works independent of any

active instruction isn't new.

Global history is riddled with golems and Hephaestus' mechanical servants,

and statues and puppets and bronze figures coming to life.

You can also see less anthropomorphized machines in the Greek's water clocks and steam-operated bird figurines.

So even way back then, this was not a new idea.

Later devices, also technically robots, were developed in the 19th century,

with the dawn of radio waves and the harnessing of electricity,

which led to remote-controlled machines

and simple, early, programmable devices. An Android is a more specific type of robot designed to

look like a human. Falling into this category would be the metallic Terminator robots of the Terminator movies,

and even figures like Data from Star Trek, who was a robot designed to look like a human.

The word android comes to us from the Greek language, combining two words that together

means something like having the form or likeness of a man.

And although the word android is typically used to describe robots that look like any type of human,

if you wanted to get pedantic about it, you could call androids designed to look like women, ginoids.

A cyborg is often portrayed similarly to an android in literature and film,

but the two terms actually refer to two different things. While an android is a robot that is

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