The word is 90 years old. In 1921, a play about robots premiered at the National Theater in Prague, then capital of Czechoslovakia. The word stems from the Czech word robota meaning forced labor, drudgery, and servitude. The robots in Capek’s play were molded out of a chemical batter, and they looked exactly like humans.
Even before the word was invented, Leonardo da Vinci's 1495 sketch of a mechanical knight, which could sit up and move its arms and legs, is considered to be the first plan for a humanoid robot.
Robots do many things these days, such as clean floors, build and paint cars, harvest crops, play chess, act as prosthetics, and perform operations.
Isaac Asimov developed what have become the three universal rules for robots.
# A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
# A robot must obey orders given it by human beings except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
# A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.
Danger, danger Will Robinson, this is beginning to ramble.