One hundred years ago, a Czech playwright named Karel Capek coined the term « robot ». Right from the get-go, the overly negative ‘murderous-machine’ trope took hold, and we’ve never trusted a bot since.
Capek’s robots were as homicidal as they were helpful. In the play, they end up going on a killing spree. Not surprising, his original bots inspired Terminator, Westworld and a bunch of other machines that planted deep in our collective pop culture consciousness the idea that robots will outsmart us – and exterminate us.
The look of a robot over time
Since Capek’s initial conceptualization, robots have undergone many iterations. At the start, they were less machine, more human form. They looked like us, and had a « chemical batter » for a body instead of the expected metal material and wires.