Shaw and Robots

Shaw was related to robots through his acquaintance with Karel Čapek (1890–1938). The word “robot” comes from the Czech robota, meaning “forced labour.” “Rab” in its Slavic linguistic root means “slave.” The term was coined in Čapek’s 1920 play R.U.R. Rosumovi Umělí Roboti, which was referred to as Rossum’s Universal Robots in English versions. Čapek at first wanted to call his artificial creatures “labours,” the Latin form of “labour.” Not liking the word, Čapek consulted his elder brother Josef, a painter and set designer, who suggested the word robota. Typical of Shaw, soon to be the Nobel laureate for literature in 1925, he connected R.U.R. to his theory of the Life Force and Creative Evolution.