The Brief History of Humanity's Wacky and Wizardly Robots

From a tiny mechanical fly no larger than a dime, to a heavily armed military drone, to a cleaning Roomba marketed as a commercial product, to a hulking monolith of steel that can level entire mountainsides. Robots – a whole realm of possibility that was born from a single thought; “Why can’t we give an inanimate object life?” In this article, we will unearth the early and bizarre origins of robots to their dominance today in both pop culture and everyday life.

The creation of robots traces all the way back to Ancient Greece, to the myth of the legendary Talos. The Talos was a giant bronze automaton, built by Hephaestus to protect the kingdom of Crete from any invading forces. Built in a massive volcano forge and powered by ichor, the blood of the gods, the bronze guardian roamed the island day and night scanning the sea for intruders. If the Talos saw any approaching ships, it would arm itself with massive boulders to use as devastating cannonballs. If any survivors made it to shore, the Talos would superheat its body and crush its enemies to death. Even though the Talos was (thankfully) only a story, the mechanical myth first sparked the concept of machines that can act on their own – robots.

The first robots originated all the way back in ancient Egypt and China. Over 4000 years ago, the Ancient Egyptians fashioned wooden statues whose appendages could be moved with a simple mechanism. Some advanced statues were even capable of dancing, using a complex system of interlocking pulleys and strings. They weren't exactly robots, but they suggested that the ancient Egyptians understood some mechanical engineering principles and could use them to build devices that mimicked human motion. Meanwhile, in Ancient China, recovered texts glorified the creation of the yǒng, mechanical wooden figurines with moving wooden appendages that were used as burial decorations as early as the 8th century BCE. In fact, a famous Daoist fable from the 3rd-century tells of a craftsman, Yan Shi, who presented King Mu of Zhou a yǒng that could sing and dance. The king was so startled that he initially wanted the talented craftsman executed. In 1772, French inventor and artist Jacques de Vaucanson created a mechanical duck that could move, eat, and drink, capable of mimicking life through machinery. Initially, the earliest robots were mostly created in order to impress others, as decorative pieces rather than machinery that could actually automate tasks. However, it was not long before inventors started asking themselves “What if robots could do other things?” before the first actual robot was invented.

Fast forward to the Industrial Revolution, where movies and books started to popularize these robots. In 1922, the word “robot” was first used by Karel Chapek in his play Rossum's Universal Robots, also known as RUR. The play described the creation of these artificial beings created to serve humans, called “robots” (which comes from the Czech word roboto, which means forced labor) Not long after, Isaac Asimov created the 3 rules of robotics; 

1. A robot must not let another human come into harm

2. A robot must obey human orders, as long as it does not contradict the 1st law.

3. A robot must protect itself, as long as no humans are harmed as a result. 

By introducing the concept of sentient AI, Asimov' s rules influenced real world discussion about ethics and behavior. 

Finally, in 1956, George Deval and Joseph Angelberger created the very first official robot – UNIMATE. The early prototype consisted of a hydraulically powered robotic arm with multiple joints, along with a basic memory and control system. The robot was capable of lifting heavy parts, pouring substances into cups, and much much more. More importantly, it could do the task over and over again without error. Most industries saw this as an opportunity – a machine that could do repetitive tasks without direct human intervention was a revolutionary discovery to mankind. Now, in the present day, robots are used for everything – mining, assembling products, war, cooking, cleaning up houses, construction, surgery, and much much more. You name it, robots have the ability to change the way we live.