In1921, Karel Capek's play R. U. R:Rossum's Universal Robots had its first public performance in Prague, and was translated into English the following year. He needed a name for the factory-produced humanoid workers of the story, and was thinking of coining something based on the word "labour". But his brother Josef suggested an old Czech word for "forced labour", robota. And the word "robot" was born.

If the Capeks had known English, they might have chosen one of the words with relevant senses that were already in the language. "Automaton" had been available since the 17th century and "android" since the 18th. But the clear sound of "robot" seemed to capture the public imagination, because within five years it was being used not only for intelligent artificial beings but for any machine capable of carrying out a complex set of movements.

In science fictions(小说), the word took on new life, with writers such as Isaac Asimov writing well-regarded novels in which robots played a central role. It was these writers who first shortened "robot" to "bot", but none of them could have expected the explosion of usages which arrived in the 1990s, as the shortened word came to be adopted in computing. Today, a bot is any piece of software that runs an automated task, such as in searching the Internet or playing computer games. It has also become a suffix(后缀) , with the function of the "bot" explained in the other part of the word, as in searchbot, infobot, spybot and warbot.

As early as 1923, George Bernard Shaw had applied the word "robot" to people who act automatically, without thinking or emotion, usually because of the repetitive work they have to do. Now anyone having automaton-like behaviour risks attracting the label. A movie star called Samantha who has taken on the same type of character too many times might have her roles described as "Samanthabots. "And in 2009"Obamabots"arrived -people who support Barack Obama without really knowing anything about him.