What is A Robot WHAT IS A ROBOT The term robot comes from the Czechoslovakian wordfor "forced labor," invented by Karel Capek. Karel Capek used robots in his plays and had them look and behave like people. Today, the word "robot" is harder to define because of new designs and technology. The third edition of Websters's New International Dictionary defines a robot as "a machine in the form of a human being that performs the mechanical functions of a human being." However, today's robot makers are not interested in giving their creations human forms. Most industrial robots look like lobsters or oversized grasshoppers. Around 1981,