the.com/android
A robot cosplaying as human, honesty optional, uncanny valley not included.
means A robot or synthetic being built to look and move like a human.
from Built from Greek andr- ('man, male human') plus -eides ('form, likeness'), so literally 'manlike thing.' The word surfaces in French (andréide) and English by the 1700s to describe automatons, long before science fiction got hold of it — Mary Shelley's era loved clockwork men, but 'android' as a term predates even that, rooted in Enlightenment fascination with mechanical humans.
- word origin
- greek for man-shaped, coined centuries before robots existed
- google's version
- software wearing a robot's name as a mascot
- sci-fi staple
- usually built to question what makes humans human
- real tech
- honda's asimo tried walking like one, fell a lot