The History Of Robots

Do you know that the first industrial robot started work in 1959? Now robots are in factories, in homes, laboratories, and the sky. Robots explore other planets as well as ocean depths. They also carry out jobs that are dangerous for humans. From the first robots of the 1950s to the drones and androids of the present day, this book charts the amazing history of robots.

Once the subject of speculative fiction, robots are now reality in many spheres of life, including business, law enforcement, the military, the sciences, entertainment, and even in our homes. They will play bigger roles in the near and distant future. This book traces the development of robots from antiquity through the modern era and into the myriad possibilities of their future practical uses, including the exciting potential intersection of robots and artificial intelligence. A lively historical narrative and stimulating imagery of robots throughout the ages make this book a valuable resource for robot fans and casual readers alike.

We rely on your support to help us keep producing beautiful, free, and unrestricted editions of literature for the digital age. Will you support our efforts with a donation? R.U.R., or Rossum’s Universal Robots is a play written in 1920 by Karel Čapek, a Czech writer who wrote many plays and novels, many of them with science-fiction and dystopian themes. R.U.R. is perhaps the most well-known of these works in the English-speaking world because it brought the word “robot” into the language. “Robot” is derived from the Czech word meaning “worker.” The play is set in the island headquarters of the R.U.R. corporation. The corporation has been manufacturing artificial beings which resemble humans, but who are tireless workers. They can be mass-produced in large numbers and are being adopted as workers in many countries. In the first scene of the play, they are visited by a young woman, Helena Glory, who aspires to relieve the lot of the robots, who she sees as oppressed. However, in what must be the fastest seduction scene in all drama, she is wooed and agrees to marry Harry Domin, the factory manager, who she has just met. She still however aspires to improve the life of robots and find a way to give them souls. Ultimately, however, this admirable desire leads to disaster for humankind. The play was translated into English, and slightly abridged, by Paul Selver and Nigel Playfair in 1923. This version quickly became popular with both British and American audiences and was well received by critics.

Do you know that the first industrial robot started work in 1959? Now robots are in factories, in homes, laboratories, and the sky. Robots explore other planets as well as ocean depths. They also carry out jobs that are dangerous for humans. From the first robots of the 1950s to the drones and androids of the present day, this book charts the amazing history of robots.

Once the subject of speculative fiction, robots are now reality in many spheres of life, including business, law enforcement, the military, the sciences, entertainment, and even in our homes. They will play bigger roles in the near and distant future. This book traces the development of robots from antiquity through the modern era and into the myriad possibilities of their future practical uses, including the exciting potential intersection of robots and artificial intelligence. A lively historical narrative and stimulating imagery of robots throughout the ages make this book a valuable resource for robot fans and casual readers alike.

Medieval robots took such forms as talking statues, mechanical animals, or silent metal guardians; some served to entertain or instruct while others performed surveillance or discipline. Medieval Robots explores the forgotten history of real and imagined machines that captivated Europe from the ninth through the fourteenth centuries.

Artificial intelligence in 100 stories. To ready us for the inevitable, here are 100 of the best short stories ever written – most of them by humans – about artificial intelligence. Simon Ings has assembled anthropomorphic cyborgs and invertebrate AIs, thuggish metal lumps and wisps of manufactured intelligence so delicate that if you blink you might miss them in the new overlord of all robot literary compendiums. It's Alive! is about inventors and their creations. Following the Money drops robots into the day-to-day business of living. Owners and Servants considers the human potentials and pitfalls of owning and maintaining robots. Changing Places looks at what happens at the blurred interface between human and machine minds. All Hail the New Flesh waves goodbye to the physical boundaries that once separated machines from their human creators. Succession considers the future of human and machine consciousnesses – in so far as we might have one. With 100 stories spanning an order of magnitude more pages, Simon Ings's We, Robots is the new overlord of all robot literary compendiums. Welcome it.

Traces the story of how ancient cultures envisioned artificial life, automata, self-moving devices and human enhancements, sharing insights into how the mythologies of the past related to and shaped ancient machine innovations.