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Interesting Facts: Robots Among Us

1. The word «Robot» comes from the theater The word «robot» was not invented by engineers or scientists. It first appeared in 1920 in the science fiction play «R.U.R.» (Rossum’s Universal Robots) by Czech writer Karel Čapek. The word comes from the Czech «robota,» which means «drudgery» or «forced labor.» Thus, robots were conceived from the very beginning as artificial laborers.

2. Robots on Mars are «long-lived geologists» Famous NASA rovers such as «Spirit,» «Opportunity,» and «Curiosity» are robotic geologists.

• They have signal delay: Commands from Earth to Mars take from 5 to 20 minutes one way. Because of this, rovers are not controlled «live» like a radio-controlled car. They receive a set of commands (e.g., «drive 10 meters forward, avoiding rocks») and execute them autonomously using their onboard AI.
• They exceeded all expectations: The «Opportunity» rover was designed for only 90 Martian days of operation. In the end, it worked for 15 years and drove over 45 kilometers until its mission ended due to a global dust storm.

3. The first surgical robot was created for brain surgery In 1985, the PUMA 560 robotic arm, originally created for industry, was used to perform a neurosurgical biopsy. It was able to guide a needle into the patient’s brain with sub-millimeter precision — much more accurately than a human hand could. Today, systems like «da Vinci» regularly assist in thousands of surgeries, making them less traumatic.

4. South Korea has the highest robot «density» in the world If we measure robotization not by total number, but by «density» (the number of industrial robots per 10,000 human employees), then the world leader is South Korea. There are more than 1,000 robots for every 10,000 workers in the manufacturing sector (according to 2021-2022 data). It is followed by Singapore and Japan.

5. Animal robots save wildlife To study animals in their natural habitat without scaring them, scientists use spy robots disguised as these animals.

• Penguin robots with cameras infiltrate colonies of emperor penguins in Antarctica to monitor their health and behavior.
• Crocodile and turtle robots film wildlife in Africa, getting closer to animals than a human ever could.

6. The «Uncanny Valley» Effect Why do robots that are almost like humans scare us? This phenomenon is called the «Uncanny Valley.» The graph shows:

1. When a robot is clearly a «machine» (like an industrial manipulator), we feel comfortable with it.
2. When it is «cute» and looks like a cartoon character (like R2-D2), we like it.
3. But when a robot becomes very similar to a human, yet is subtly different (dead eyes, jerky facial expressions), it causes revulsion and even fear.
4. Empathy only returns if the robot becomes indistinguishable from a healthy human.

7. The first robot to receive citizenship In 2017, a humanoid robot (gynoid) named Sophia, created by Hanson Robotics, was granted official citizenship by Saudi Arabia. This sparked a lot of debate about ethics and what it means to «be a citizen.» Sophia is known for her interviews, where she demonstrates advanced (though largely scripted) AI capabilities in communication.

8. Robot bees for pollination In some regions, populations of real bees are declining catastrophically. Scientists at Harvard and other institutes are developing «RoboBees» — tiny flying robots the size of an insect. Their future task is to autonomously pollinate plants to save crops. This is a vivid example of bionics and swarm intelligence.