zlacker

An old Slavic word robota (slavery is a good translation) was the inspiration for early science fiction writer Chapek to coin the word robot in the book Rossum's Universal Robots.

The plot centers around artificial flesh and bone life (the robots) which "lack nothing but a soul" used as a forced labor class with outcomes you might imagine.

Given the origin, really "robots, not slaves!" doesn't hold up as a particularly strong argument.

>>colech+(OP)
In Czech robota means more along the lines of "manual labor" not slavery. It has a connotation of drudgery and tedium though.

Edit: The related word Robotnik (like the villain in Sonic) means something like "serf" though

>>colech+(OP)
> An old Slavic word robota (slavery is a good translation)...

This is unequivocally false. I speak both Czech ans Slovak, with the word robota being Czech in origin. Robota either means work in general, or manual labour specifically. It does not, nor has it ever, meant slavery. The word for that would be otroctvo in Slovak or otroctví in Czech.

>>Hideou+H1
When such words were really in use though, how much was the manual labor a result of choice or freedom of the laborer?

>>0x4477+Q2
Would the meaning have shifted in the last hundred years?

>>colech+Eb
Not in the way you indicate, especially since there is already a dedicated word for slavery. To the best of my knowledge, robota still refers to work (as in one's job) or labour in general. I most frequently encounter the word robota when I or someone else announces that they are leaving to go to work by saying 'Idem do roboty.'

There isn't really any ambiguity to it and I have never seen the word used as some sort of analogy or synonym for slavery (certainly not in common parlance, though I'm sure it has been used that way somewhere, sometime). If someone wishes to talk about slavery, they will use the appropriate word.

>>colech+S2
"Robota" is still in regular use in modern Czech. And when R.U.R. was written (1920) the days of serfdom were pretty far in the past for Czechs (abolished in 1848).

>>Hideou+H1
In Polish, robotnik means just a physical laborer, there's no negative connotation at all.