Editing Robot (section)

=== Literature ===
{{Main|Robots in literature}}

Robotic characters, [[android (robot)|androids]] (artificial men/women) or [[gynoid]]s (artificial women), and [[cyborg]]s (also "[[bionic]] men/women", or humans with significant mechanical enhancements) have become a staple of science fiction.

The first reference in Western literature to mechanical servants appears in [[Homer]]'s ''[[Iliad]]''. In Book XVIII, [[Hephaestus]], god of fire, creates new armor for the hero Achilles, assisted by robots.<ref name="Iliad">{{cite web| access-date=21 November 2007| url= http://www.arts.cornell.edu/theatrearts/CTA/Program%20Notes/comic%20potential.asp| publisher= Cornell University| title = Comic Potential: Q&A with Director Stephen Cole|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20090103103732/http://www.arts.cornell.edu/theatrearts/CTA/Program%20Notes/comic%20potential.asp|archive-date=3 January 2009|url-status=dead}}</ref> According to the [[E. V. Rieu|Rieu]] translation, "Golden maidservants hastened to help their master. They looked like real women and could not only speak and use their limbs but were endowed with intelligence and trained in handwork by the immortal gods." The words "robot" or "android" are not used to describe them, but they are nevertheless mechanical devices human in appearance. "The first use of the word Robot was in Karel Čapek's play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) (written in 1920)". Writer Karel Čapek was born in Czechoslovakia (Czech Republic).

Possibly the most prolific author of the twentieth century was [[Isaac Asimov]] (1920–1992)<ref name=FreedProlific>{{cite book|editor-last=Freedman|editor-first=Carl|title=Conversations with Isaac Asimov|year=2005|publisher=Univ. Press of Mississippi|location=Jackson|isbn=978-1-57806-738-1|url=https://archive.org/details/isbn_9781578067381|url-access=registration|edition=1.|access-date=4 August 2011|page=vii|quote=... quite possibly the most prolific}}</ref> who published over five-hundred books.<ref name=Oakes500>{{cite book|last=Oakes|first=Elizabeth H.|title=American writers|year=2004|publisher=Facts on File|location=New York|isbn=978-0-8160-5158-8|url=https://archive.org/details/americanwriters0000oake|url-access=registration|quote=most prolific authors asimov.|access-date=4 August 2011|page=[https://archive.org/details/americanwriters0000oake/page/24 24]}}</ref> Asimov is probably best remembered for his science-fiction stories and especially those about robots, where he placed robots and their interaction with society at the center of many of his works.<ref>He wrote "over 460 books as well as thousands of articles and reviews", and was the "third most prolific writer of all time [and] one of the founding fathers of modern science fiction". {{cite book |title=Isaac Asimov: a life of the grand master of science fiction |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=EWbMiyS9v98C |isbn=978-0-7867-1518-3 |pages=1–2 |author=White, Michael |year=2005 |publisher=Carroll & Graf |access-date=25 September 2016 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20161205023302/https://books.google.com/books?id=EWbMiyS9v98C |archive-date=5 December 2016 |url-status=live }}</ref><ref>{{cite web|url=http://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/SOS/Asimov.html |title=Asimov's Laws of Robotics – Implications for Information Technology |publisher=Australian National University/IEEE |author=R. Clarke |access-date=25 September 2008 |url-status=dead |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080722022618/https://www.anu.edu.au/people/Roger.Clarke/SOS/Asimov.html |archive-date=22 July 2008 }}</ref> Asimov carefully considered the problem of the ideal set of instructions robots might be given to lower the risk to humans, and arrived at his [[Three Laws of Robotics]]: a robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm; a robot must obey orders given it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law; and a robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.<ref>{{cite web |last=Seiler |first=Edward |author2=Jenkins, John H. |url=http://www.asimovonline.com/asimov_FAQ.html |title=Isaac Asimov FAQ |publisher=Isaac Asimov Home Page |date=27 June 2008 |access-date=24 September 2008 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120716233605/http://www.asimovonline.com/asimov_FAQ.html |archive-date=16 July 2012 |url-status=live }}</ref> These were introduced in his 1942 short story "Runaround", although foreshadowed in a few earlier stories. Later, Asimov added the Zeroth Law: "A robot may not harm humanity, or, by inaction, allow humanity to come to harm"; the rest of the laws are modified sequentially to acknowledge this.

According to the ''Oxford English Dictionary,'' the first passage in Asimov's short story "[[Liar! (short story)|Liar!]]" (1941) that mentions the First Law is the earliest recorded use of the word ''[[robotics]]''. Asimov was not initially aware of this; he assumed the word already existed by analogy with ''mechanics,'' ''hydraulics,'' and other similar terms denoting branches of applied knowledge.<ref>{{cite book|author=White, Michael|title=Isaac Asimov: A Life of the Grand Master of Science Fiction|page=56|year=2005|publisher=Carroll & Graf|isbn=978-0-7867-1518-3}}</ref>