A play about the revolt of human workers — not machines — gave us the word ‘robot’

A Boston Dynamics robot is seen on a media tour at the Hyundai Motor Group Metaplant, in Ellabell, Ga., in March. Mike Stewart/AP

Mike Stewart/AP

Clanker, rust bucket, tinskin — slang words used to put down robots are on the rise.

As AI and robots threaten to replace human work and maybe even humans, the recent popularity of anti-robot lingo seems to reflect growing dissent to our changing relationship to robots.

But you might not know that the word itself — robot — first appeared in our lexicon with a cultural critique already built in.

In this edition of Word

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