zlacker

It's a composition vs. inheritance problem.

I postulate that robots need at least a single manipulator in the physical realm: Mechanical arm assembling car doors = robot. CNC machine that follows a path = robot. Mechs with chicken legs = robot. Brain in a vat = not a robot... but can be embedded in a robot.

>>rzzzt+(OP)
It's a nice idea, but it totally ignores literally decades of existing use of the word "robot" (or its abbreviation "bot") to describe pure software that accesses internet services. e.g. web crawlers (googlebot), chat bots, automated clickers, etc...

Lexicography tends to be descriptive rather than prescriptive. If enough people use a word to mean a thing, that word means that thing. As least in some contexts. See also "gay", "hacker", etc...

Note that it is possible for a word's meaning to be "reclaimed", but it generally doesn't get that way by some small group of people just shouting "You're doing it wrong!"

>>Karell+M8
Hmm, "robot" in its spelled out form sounds weird to me for this use ("bot" is more frequent). Wikipedia redirects people looking for software agents to a separate page from the article about the beep-boop ones: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robot