A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm. A robot must obey the orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Laws.

The play begins in a factory that makes artificial people, made of synthetic organic matter, called "robots." Unlike the modern usage of the term, these creatures are closer to the modern idea of cyborgs or even clones, as they can be mistaken for humans and can think for themselves. They seem happy to work for humans, although that changes, and a hostile robot rebellion leads to the extinction of the human race.

Karel Čapek introduced and made popular the frequently used international word robot, which first appeared in his play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) in 1920. The word robot comes from the word robota, meaning literally "serf labor", and, figuratively, "drudgery" or "hard work" in modern Czech (in Slovak, Russian, Polish, archaic Czech and other Slavic languages the cognate word means simply "work", comparable to German arbeit, with the same meaning.).

Biologiste britannique, ami de Charles Darwin, il était surnommé « Le bouledogue de Darwin ». Huxley fut convaincu par la théorie de l'évolution. Il publia en 1863 Evidence as to Man's Place in Nature (La Place de l'homme dans la nature) dans lequel il développa la thèse que les singes anthropoïdes sont nos proches parents, ce qui lui valut des critiques de la part des non-évolutionnistes

Augusta Ada King, Countess of Lovelace (10 December 1815 – 27 November 1852), born Augusta Ada Byron and now commonly known as Ada Lovelace, was an English mathematician and writer chiefly known for her work on Charles Babbage's early mechanical general-purpose computer, the Analytical Engine. Her notes on the engine include what is recognized as the first algorithm intended to be processed by a machine. Because of this, she is often considered the world's first computer programmer.

The Turk, also known as the Mechanical Turk or Automaton Chess Player (German: Schachtürke, "chess Turk"' Hungarian: A Török), was a fake chess-playing machine constructed in the late 18th century. From 1770 until its destruction by fire in 1854, it was exhibited by various owners as an automaton, though it was exposed in the early 1820s as an elaborate hoax.

Charles Babbage, FRS (26 December 1791 – 18 October 1871[1]) was an English mathematician, philosopher, inventor and mechanical engineer who originated the concept of a programmable computer.[2] Considered a "father of the computer",[3] Babbage is credited with inventing the first mechanical computer that eventually led to more complex designs.[4]