The term ‘robot’ was coined in in 1920 by Josef Čapek for his brother Karel.   The word meant “forced labour”.

For all the impressive advances in robotics since then, some of which we saw on the BBC series ‘Revolutions‘ last night, the idea of “forced labour” – including, for Jim Al-Kalili, child-rearing – remains almost unquestioned.

It reminded me that we humans often dive into technology, when we should be re-thinking how we relate to each other.