means Machines—often programmable and increasingly autonomous—designed to perform tasks for or instead of humans, ranging from factory arms to humanoid companions.

from From the Czech word 'robota,' meaning forced labor or drudgery (the kind a serf owed his lord). Playwright Karel Čapek introduced 'robot' to the world in his 1920 play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots)—though he credited his brother Josef with actually suggesting the word. So the very name carries servitude baked in: these are, etymologically, our drudges.