When the Czech writer Karel Capek started working on his science-fiction play R.U.R., he asked his brother Josef what he should call the humanlike machines at the center of the play. Josef, who was a poet, thought of robota, the Czech word for forced labor, and told Karel to call them robots.Since Josef Capek coined it in 1920, robot has become one of the hottest words in any language that adopted it. Yet despite all the talk about robotics, robots today can automate only a small fraction – about 5 percent – of the dull, monotonous work they could be used for. “There are robots welding cars and helping with other repetitive tasks, but manufacturers still can’t economically or practically automate most tasks in an assembly line,” says Jim Lawton, chief marketing officer of Rethink Robotics.

Source: Rethink Robotics is Freeing Robots From Their Cages – GE Reports