In centuries past — long before the term 'robot' came into being —
mechanical helpers to assist humans
looked pretty much just like people.
If a creation was devised to replace a
person in a certain task or series of
tasks, it had to be somewhat
anthropomorphic or 'man-formed.'
For example, ancient Jewish
mythological beings called golems
were first mentioned in the Bible in
Psalms, and were present in Jewish
writings for several millennium.
Figure 1 shows such a
representation of a golem formed
from clay that is being presented a
piece of fruit by a little girl in the
1920 silent film The Golem: How He
Came Into the World, directed by
Paul Wegener and Carl Boese. These
non-biological, soulless beings were
the world's first anthropomorphic
bipedal beings that were not
humans.
All mechanical 'men' of the early
20th century seemed to have been
designed for lowly factory labor. It
turns out that the word robot
actually came from the Czech word
robota which means serf or
indentured servant.
Figure 2 is a promotional image
of a 1928 presentation of Karel
Capek's 1920 play, R.U.R. (or
Rossum's Universal Robots) — an
English subtitle used in the place of
the Czech title, that first gave the
general public a vision of a world
where robots were commonplace. It
just so happened that the robots
turned on their masters in the play,
and the result was not pleasant.
Apparently, the robots just had to
have a mean streak in them (or else
As I read through different magazine and media articles on robots, I am always amazed to see how the public's opinions and perceptions of robots have changed over the years. There seems to be a greater polarization amongst people regarding robots that is wider than ever. You either love 'em or hate 'em. They are either man's best friend or evil drones in the sky above us. The perception of robots is nothing like that of other technology devices such as cell phones, computers, or microwave ovens. Sure, there were always a few people who said they could do without them, but they never said they hated them. Poor little Robbie. He already has enemies that have never had the chance to meet him and see just how amazing he and his fellow robot buddies really are. I'll discuss some of humanity's misconceptions about robots, and end with a discussion of Honda's famous Asimo and also two grape vineyard pruning robots.
Humanity’s Perception
of Robots
by Tom Carroll g{xÇ Now a n d
74 SERVO 03.2014
TWCarroll@aol.com
Figure 1. Ancient Jewish
golem in a 1920 film.
Figure 2. Promotional poster for R.U.R.
