According to Isaac Asimov, “Mechanical human beings are to be found in ancient and medieval myths and legends, and the word “robot” originally appeared in Karl Capek’s play R.U.R, which first staged in 1921 in Czechoslovakia, but was soon translated into many languages.” I remembered him mentioning something about that in an introduction to his novel The Caves of Steel (One of my favorite SF novels BTW). Asimov also points out, “R.U.R. added its somber view to that of the even more famous Frankenstein, in which the creation of another kind of human being also ended in disaster, though on a more limited scale. Following these examples, it became very common, in the 1920s and 1930s, to picture robots as dangerous devices that invariably destroyed their creators. The moral was pointed out over and over again that ‘there are some things Man was not meant to know.’” Everyone should definitely pick up the Robot Trilogy. The prequel I’ Robot is excellent. That Will Smith movie does Asimov’s work such poor justice. The whole saga is awesome.