THE DAY THE 'ROBOT' ENTERED THE WORLD

Futurist John Diebold's 1952 book Automation gave the term its modern meaning – not just conveyor belts, but entire machines doing human work, with self-correcting intelligence. Newspapers and policymakers seized on this idea.

- TDG NETWORK

On January 2, 1921, a modest Czech drama introduced a word that would reshape science fiction and our imagination of work.

That day in Hradec Králové, Karel Capek’s play R.U.R. (Rossum’s Universal Robots) - performed by a volunteer ensemble - had its premiere. The play's title gave birth to the term robot (from the Czech robota, meaning forced labor). Capek was reacting to the horrors of World War I and rapid industrial change. His “robots” were not metallic machines but bioengineered “artificial people” designed as cheap, tireless workers. At first they seem like a miracle - ending hunger and drudgery - but Capek’s story turns dark. In R.U.R., the robots gain consciousness and revolt. By the end they declare “the power of man has fallen... The period of mankind has passed away... Mankind is no more”. The haunting climax underscores Capek’s warning: the prize of productivity can be the death of dignity. As he observed after the premiere, “the product of the human brain has escaped the control of human hands” - a “comedy of science” with very real consequences.

Capek’s Robots were a pointed critique of the efficiency craze. The MIT Press recalls that R.U.R. “gave birth to the robot” as a symbol of dehumanization. Indeed, the term robot itself carries its own warning: its root robota meant forced, servile labor. In the play the robots boast they can do “the work of two and a half men”, making humans feel obsolete. Even as the robots declared “we wanted more life”, Capek was holding up a mirror to his own world: a Czech intellectual elite grappling with how new technologies might enslave or free us. R.U.R.'s legacy is enormous - it taught millions the word robot, and framed robots as workers who might demand rights. (“I know everything for myself,” one robot proclaims in the play.)