Black and white photograph of Czech writer Karel Čapek.

Karel Čapek

(1890 - 1938)

Karel Čapek coined the word robot, its first usage to mean an intelligent artificial being. The word derived from the Czech robota, meaning “forced work” or “drudgery,” which referred to a system of serfdom that existed in Central Europe for several centuries. He published An Atomic Fantasy in 1924 and War with the Newts in 1936.

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