ZAP’S FACTS!
ROBOTS & AI

The word "robot" comes from a Czech word for forced labor.

It was invented for a 1920 play about artificial workers who rise up against their human bosses.

2 min read
The word "robot" comes from a Czech word for forced labor.
THE FULL STORY

In 1920 a Czech writer named Karel Čapek wrote a science-fiction play called “R.U.R.” - which stood for “Rossum’s Universal Robots.” It was about a factory that built artificial people to do all the boring work humans didn’t want. Things did not go well. The artificial workers rose up against their bosses.

Čapek needed a name for the artificial workers. He asked his older brother Josef, a painter, for a suggestion. Josef proposed “robot,” from the Czech word “robota,” which meant “forced labor” or “drudgery.” Karel used it, and the play became a huge hit in dozens of languages.

So one of the most futuristic words in any language is actually a hundred years old and means something close to “slave worker.” Czech wasn’t a common language for new English words - so this is one of only a handful of Czech words that English uses every single day.

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