"Robot" Is a Social Construct: Why Your Dishwasher Is Not a Robot

Robot etymology is from Czech robota, robotník, robotiti. To work, worker, to do work. I especially like "road works" signs in Poland saying "uwaga roboty drogowe" and translate/visualise it in my mind like "Danger robots on the road"

I once had a robotics professor who argued any definition of 'robot' broad enough to include roombas and self-driving cars and industrial robot arms (even if made narrow enough to exclude remote-control toy cars, cars with cruise control, CNC mills and washing machines) would inevitably define cruise missiles as robots. Meaning the world had 'killer robots' before we had digital computers.

Instead, he argued the definition of a robot is "I know it when I see it"

I strongly advise the podcast "Robot Or Not". The hosts have very strong opinions on what exactly constitutes a robot, and readers write in with edge cases. It's been going on for a long time, so nowadays they also categorize other things.

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/robot-or-not/id9979302...

https://open.spotify.com/show/4M2AELzmQy77FxaYZMl6e9

https://pocketcasts.com/podcast/robot-or-not/b911efc0-e2f6-0...

The Crushinator might disagree if the premise is that an appliance/machine shaped thing can't be a robot.

https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=futurama+...

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