Similar to what we identified with emotions, it seems that everyone knows what a robot is, until asked to give a definition (Fehr & Russell, 1984; SPARC, 2015; Simon, 2017). Etymologically speaking, the word robot derives from the archaic Czech word robota, and means ‘forced, serf labor.’ The word robot was introduced into the English vocabulary for the first time after the play ‘Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti’ (Rossum’s Universal Robots, R.U.R.), written by Karek Čapek in 1920, and staged in New York in 1922 (Čapek, 2004). R.U.R. was a play, for which Čapek invented the word robot, and involved a scientist named Rossum who discovered the secret of creating human-like machines which he then produces and distributes worldwide through a newly established factory. At the same time, another scientist decides to make the robots more human, which he does by gradually adding such traits as the capacity to feel pain. Roboti were human-like machines that were supposed to serve humans and do their tedious work but eventually came to dominate them completely. With his play, Čapek wanted to criticize the mechanization of human workers as a result of the industrial revolution (Horáková & Kelemen, 2003). Today, the Oxford dictionary reads ‘a machine resembling a human being and able to replicate certain human movements and functions automatically.’

This definition has taken different shapes and forms in different communities, especially in the engineering one. For more technical definitions, some authors use classical definitions such as ‘machines, situated in the world, that sense, think and act.’ Others, like the International Standard Organization (ISO), define robots as ‘actuated mechanism(s) programmable in two or more axes with a degree of autonomy, moving within its environment, to perform intended tasks.’ (ISO 8373:2012).

Although naming a thing is to acknowledge its existence as separate from everything else that has a name (Popova, 2015), there are nonetheless many terms that do not have a legal definition. Some legal scholars in the United States (U.S.) have defined a robot as a ‘constructed system that displays both physical and mental agency but is not alive in the biological sense’ (Richards & Smart, 2016). The Japanese Electric Machinery Law (1971) defined an industrial robot as an ‘all-purpose machine, equipped with a memory device and a terminal device (end-effector), capable of rotation and of replacing human labour by the automatic performance of movements’ (Mathia, 2010).

In this respect, Bertolini and Palmerini gave a relevant definition in the context of the EU Robolaw project in 2014: ‘A machine, which (1) may be either provided of a physical body, allowing it to interact with the external world, or rather have an intangible nature – such as a software or program – (2) which in its functioning is alternatively directly controlled or simply supervised by a human being, or may even act autonomously in order to (3) perform tasks, which present different degrees of complexity (repetitive or not) and may entail the adoption of not predetermined choices among possible alternatives, yet aimed at attaining a result or provide information for further judgment, as so determined by its user, creator or programmer, (4) including but not limited to the modification of the external environment, and which in so doing may (5) interact and cooperate with humans in various forms and degrees’ (Bertolini & Palmerini, 2014).

In 2017, the European Parliament (EP) called on the European Commission (EC) to take regulatory action – in the form of a Directive and on the basis of arts. 225 and 114 TFEU – with respect to robots and AI (European Parliament, 2017). In it, the EP acknowledged that, at that time, there was no EU definition for ‘cyber-physical systems,’ ‘autonomous systems,’ and ‘smart autonomous robots.’ Accordingly, the EP recommended the EC establishing a definition for such systems taking into consideration the following characteristics:

The EC defined robots as ‘AI in action in the physical world.’ They also called it embodied AI. For them

To make it simpler, for this book we define a robot as ‘a movable machine that performs tasks either automatically or with a degree of autonomy’ (ISO 8373:2012; Richards & Smart, 2016; Fosch-Villaronga & Millard, 2019). Examples of robots include robotic manipulators to pick boxes or help build cars, self-driving cars, trucks or vans, drones, socially assistive robots, robotic vacuum cleaners, or conversational agents.

Humans have long imagined other types of lives and intelligence. A famous example of this can be traced back to the 1818 novel Frankenstein written by English author Mary Shelley. This well-known novel tells the story of Victor Frankenstein, a young scientist who creates a sapient creature in an unorthodox scientific experiment, thereby imagining the creation of new types of life and inspiring many generations to come in following similar paths. AI is a concept from computer science, based on statistics, and is tightly related to pattern recognition. Although it is difficult to pinpoint, the roots of AI can probably be traced back to the second half of the 20th century, and although the emergence and further development of AI have brought society new hope and massive benefits, increasingly we are being faced with their dangers too. To quote Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein in this regard,

It was in 1942 that the famous American Science Fiction writer Isaac Asimov responded to these concerns through his short story, Runaround, which revolves around the Three Laws of Robotics: