100 years later, the dystopian origin of the word ‘robot’ still rings true

Unlike other parts, serfs in Eastern Europe were pretty much slaves.

The corollary to the is that we randomly evolved of billions of years and our thinking has become so complex that we believe that we can create something that is similarly complex is very fascinating. Fetish is definitely the right word.

The notion that the AI or robots would wake up and have selfish views similar to man's makes sense to us. I wonder how long it will be before the AI or robots is simulating its own creation in their own image...

You ever see one of those crazy anime-inspired movies like Pacific Rim, with giant humanoid fighting robots? I was watching a video that discussed the practicality of this. On the surface they are completely ridiculous and ineffective. The video argued, however, that one reason an advanced society might create a machine like this is to reduce training costs. It takes knowledge and skill to do something like fly a plane or operate a tank. However every grunt soldier knows how to run, punch, and use a gun. If you can make giant robots with giant guns and a brain-computer interface, suddenly anyone can drive a superweapon.

The same kind of argument applies to AI and machines. We have massive amounts of knowledge and culture encoded in natural language, designed to be read and understood with human capabilities and logic. We have buildings, cars, appliances, machining tools, etc., all designed for human bodies. General AI that can think like a human (but faster) can quickly utilize all that knowledge, and humanoid robots (but stronger) can instantly utilize all that infrastructure. From that perspective it's an enormous value gain and not an unhealthy fetish.

That is also closer to the meaning than just "labour" or "work" in my own eastern europen language.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavs_(ethnonym)

TIL robotnik is more than a cool-sounding video-game character name.

Edit: This is a good example of "false friends of a translator" - words in different languages that sound similar but have different meanings. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/False_friend

That said rabota and robota still have a common root which means slave in most slavic languages. So how is it the czech is such an outlier is a curiosity.

I heard about this origin multiple times but never had it verified.

Maybe some native Czech speaker can enlighten us here :)