Robots

When societies began developing nearly all production and effort was the result of human labour. As mechanical means of performing functions were discovered, and mechanics and complex mechanisms weredeveloped, the need for human labour was reduced. Machinery was initially used for repetitive functions, such as lifting water and grinding grain. With technological advances more complex machineswere slowly developed, such as those invented by Hero of Alexandria in the 4th century BC, and the first half of the second millennium AD, such as the Automata of Al Jazari in the 12th century AD. Theywere not widely adopted as human labour, particularly slave labour, was still inexpensive compared to the capital-intensive machines.

Men such as Leonardo Da Vinci in 1495 through to Jacques deVaucanson in 1739, as well as rediscovering the Greek engineering methods, have made plans for and built automata and robots leading to books of designs such as the Japanese Karakuri zui (IllustratedMachinery) in 1796. As mechanical techniques developed through the Industrial age we find more practical applications such as Nikola Tesla in 1898, who designed a radio-controlled torpedo, and theWestinghouse Electric Corporation creation of Televox in 1926. From here we also find a more android development as designers tried to mimic more human-like features including designs such as those ofbiologist Makoto Nishimura in 1929 and his creation Gakutensoku, which cried and changed its facial expressions, and the more crude Elektro from Westinghouse in 1938.

Electronics then became the drivingforce of development instead of mechanics, with the advent of the first electronic autonomous robots created by William Grey Walter in Bristol, England, in 1948. The first digital and programmablerobot was invented by George Devol in 1954 and was ultimately called the Unimate. Devol sold the first Unimate to General Motors in 1961 where it was used to lift pieces of hot metal from die casting...