It’s the Spanish word for robot. Yet, my Sci-Fi nerd friends know that it is also the Czech word for robot. In fact, it was the Czech word that inspired all of Azimov’s robot stories and those of other authors that followed.
Robot, in Czech, means something akin to enslaved. I’m pondering robots this evening and looking back into my own past and the evolving idea of robots. There are robots in storytelling, and there are robots in the real world.
In storytelling, there is Robby the Robot from The Forbidden Planet, the robot from Lost in Space, HAL from 2001 A Space Odessey, Sonny the sentient robot from the story/movie I Robot, Mr. Data from STNG, and so on.
In reality, there is iRobot that produces the Roomba floor cleaning machines, robotic lawnmowers from Husqvarna, autonomous automobiles from Google/Tesla/GM and others, and too soon perhaps autonomous war machines (drones, tanks, etc.) When I was younger, these latter robotic war machines, were called War Mechs in Sci-Fi pulp magazine stories.
So, this evening I have watched a new episode of The Orville on Hulu. This particular story addresses the culpability of a robotic lifeform in the loss of lives resulting from a war between humans and Kaylons (robotic lifeforms). Substitute Muslims or Palestinians or Japanese or whomever for Kaylons, and you get the picture.
The only imperfection in the narrative is that the robotas in the story, cast in a futuristic narrative, are the African slaves whose blood and sweat built this great nation. They are the immigrants who braved exile from their own countries for a chance to eke out an existence for themselves in this country.
They are most of us.