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Maelzel's chess player was a famous hoax. It was presented to audiences in the 1800s as a chess-playing machine, and it fooled many people. There was, literally, a man hidden inside the machine operating it.

Maelzel's chess player was a famous hoax. It was presented to audiences in the 1800s as a chess-playing machine, and it fooled many people. There was, literally, a man hidden inside the machine operating it.

Capek's R. U. R. concerned mechanical devices that looked like human beings, could think, and perform factory work. The word ''robot'' and the idea of human-like devices quickly became a staple of science-fiction. Science-fiction writers soon drew a distinction between "androids," which were supposed to duplicate the appearance of humans so closely that they could be mistaken for humans, and "robots," which did not. (Lukas blurred this distinction by calling the robots in [[Star Wars]] "droids," short for androids).

Capek's R. U. R. concerned mechanical devices that looked like human beings, could think, and perform factory work. The word ''robot'' and the idea of human-like devices quickly became a staple of science-fiction. Science-fiction writers soon drew a distinction between "androids," which were supposed to duplicate the appearance of humans so closely that they could be mistaken for humans, and "robots," which did not. (Lucas blurred this distinction by calling the robots in [[Star Wars]] "droids," short for androids).

[[Isaac Asimov]] wrote a famous series of science fiction novels and stories about robots. Asimov was tired of innumerable stories that all used the same tired plot of robots rebelling and killing human beings. He decided to rule out this plot in his own stories by creating a fictional world in which robots had to obey the "three laws of robotics:"

[[Isaac Asimov]] wrote a famous series of science fiction novels and stories about robots. Asimov was tired of innumerable stories that all used the same tired plot of robots rebelling and killing human beings. He decided to rule out this plot in his own stories by creating a fictional world in which robots had to obey the "three laws of robotics:"