Support for Indie Authors discussion

Robot VS Android
We just got some feedback from our beta readers, as usual, it was constructive and insightful. Thanks beta readers.

I have two questions and I’m hoping for some comments from the Goodreads book club members.

The book is futuristic, there are humanlike house helpers and then there are the “mechs” who definitely don’t look human, they can be spiderlike or snakelike, etc. A beta read thinks we should call them all androids, we are calling them all robots.

1 – Would it be confusing to you, the reader if we called some robots (the mechs) and some androids (the humanlike)?

2 – Is the term android as popular/recognizable a term as robot for the general reader?


Regards,

Joni

I'd completely get that. It works with the popular conception of what both terms mean.

I answered you in another group but will copy paste here too.


To me, it makes sense to call the ones who look like humans androids. When I see android, I see an ultra sophisticated humanlike machine able to think and do things for themselves.

If I see the word robot, for me it can mean anything from sophisticated machine to kid toys, but if I see robot for human (android) I definitely don't see a humanlike machine but rather a metallized machine...kind of the difference between terminator with a human face (Android) and terminator without its skin (sophisticated robot).

But that's just me. I may not be the best to answer this question since I am a huge fan of science fiction. As long as you are clear from the beginning, your readers should adjust to what you call the robots/androids without a problem.

What GG said! I was thinking the exact same thing!

Ember wrote: "What GG said! I was thinking the exact same thing!"

As I said many times before, 'great minds think alike'. :P

G.G. wrote: "Ember wrote: "What GG said! I was thinking the exact same thing!"

As I said many times before, 'great minds think alike'. :P"

Yes, yes they do! :D

I agree with GG. If you search 'robot vs Android,' you will see that android typically means human-like in appearance. This gets confused because you have trashcan shaped robots like R2D2 being called droids in Star Wars, but even though he isn't human shaped, he is given human characteristics.

Christina wrote: "This gets confused because you have trashcan shaped robots like R2D2 being called droids in Star Wars, but even though he isn't human shaped, he is given human characteristics."

You know how American English and England English are not quite the same, even though we're a mere ocean apart? Consider how fortunate we are that in a galaxy far, far away they speak a form of English that is so close to ours that our words are almost identical. Thus, their word for robot is so close to our word for android, it's amazing.

But, if any culture is in the wrong for making things confusing, it is ours. After all, they were calling robots "droids" since a long, long time ago. We took their word and bastardized it. Clearly we are to blame for any confusion.

Cosign, androids are human-like or can pass for human. Robots are everything else. And then if you want to introduce cyborgs--those are humans with robotic parts.

I can't speak for anyone else but I think the terms would be very well known in your genre. If you want though you can always include a line or two explaining what the terms mean in your story world.

As a reader, I would imagine a more 'humanoid' shape if I see the word 'android' while I would imagine a 'mechanical/metallical' aspect for something with the term 'robot'.
As for the definition (for what I remember): Androids are robot with human like characteristics.
On the other hand, it depends of what you, as a writer, want us, the reader to see in our mind. Do you wish us to be surprised by a robot being more human like? or vice versa?
Sometimes, keeping a term with a misleading idea can be interesting.
And you might want to let some of the cultural background of your society in it as well. After all, perhaps 'robot' is a term accepted, or 'android', perhaps there is another term... Perhaps you can't call a robot an android? Perhaps you can't call a human shape robot like that?
I think it really depends of what you want to let us know with the term you'll choose.

Emmanuellel,

Thanks so much for your comments.

Yep, androids are human-like from my perspective.

No problem with those names. Robot is a generic term for any machine capable of some degree of autonomous activity. Anything from an assembly line to an android. Who are humanoid robots with high level of AI.
Where exactly you draw the line between them in appearance and intelligence is personal.

Ajla and Zoltan,

Thank you for your comments. Edit of manuscript is underway, thanks to everyone on Goodreads for their input.

I always considered robots as being essentially mechanical devices with varying degrees of AI. Androids, on the other hand are more like synthetic biological creations. Of course, this is just my personal opinion, and you are free to disagree.

Thanks for your comment. As indie publishers we can make changes to our manuscripts any time. We have had the most wonderful feedback from beta readers and Goodreads readers.

I agree with everyone for the most part. It's interesting, though, to go back and look at the etymology of both terms to see where they came from.

Android is actually the earlier term, derived from the Greek word for "man" and the suffix "oid" meaning "having the form or likeness of." It's been used for both humanoid robots and synthetic organisms designed to look like human -- both intelligent and not. Wikipedia notes that the term was used in US Patents as early as 1863 in reference to small human-like toy automatons. It also mentions its use in a French story from 1886 which "features an artificial humanlike robot..." In pulp sci fi it shows up again in 1936 being used to distinguish between "mechanical robots and fleshy androids.."

Robot came into the language through a Czech sci fi play that opened in 1921 ... although funnily enough in the play the robots (roboti in Czech) were synthetic organic people. But it was picked up and used subsequently for any mechanized device (shaped like a human, animal, or other) that can do autonomous work.

The upshot of all this is that, though both terms have been applied to human-shaped machines, "android" has always referred to human-shaped machines (mechanical or synthetic organisms). "Robot" has been more widely applied but most people associate it with a mechanized "thing" and (I think) almost never (in modern fiction) to convincingly realistic humanoid machines.

In the end it only really matters that you choose your terminology, explain it at least once, and then stick to that usage.

Micah wrote: "I agree with everyone for the most part. It's interesting, though, to go back and look at the etymology of both terms to see where they came from.

Android is actually the earlier term, derived fro..."

If we go that deep...

Robot originates from the Russian (and other Slavic) word of "work" (Работа). It got from there as mechanisms that do "work" for us. In general it doesn't need to have 'intelligence', just enough to be able to do a task in place of a human being. This path of meaning is clearer.

On the other hand android as 'human like' is more flexible, because the 'like' part is interpreted differently in different times. :) But we surely expect an android to have human shape and act at least similarly to a human.

You can also call them magic walking death machines. That's the great thing about writing fiction. ;)

Thanks everyone for your wonderful discussion.

Christina wrote: "You can also call them magic walking death machines. That's the great thing about writing fiction. ;)"

Exactly :)

I also have to add that "I am not a robot." ;)

The word "Robot" to mean an artificial construct used as a worker entered the language through the 1920 play "Rossum's Universal Robots" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R.U.R.

The word "Android" is simply Andr-oid, meaning "Like a human".

So to my mind any autonomous artificial worker is a robot, but only those who are in some way like a person are androids.

You're dead on. Robots can look like garbage cans, and as long as they function performing some useful task they are a robot. I look at an android as almost being human, reference "Caves of Steel" by Asimov. While C3PO ("Star Wars") is in human form, I see it as a robot because it doesn't simulate human identity like Data ("Star Trek - NG").

As someone who has built many robots in real life, I can tell you that I do not consider what I have built (to date) to be androids, even though many of them were very human-like (e.g., AI: Artificial Intelligence). The dividing line for me is the intelligence/AI/self-awareness/life factor. While, in the movie AI, the machine-creatures I helped build seemed to have intelligence/life, in reality they are just machines; so not androids. I've also built some industrial robots (talk about a lack of personality). These machines are very "mechanical" in appearance and are built for a very specific purpose - work. That too can be a dividing line. Machines built for such a specific purpose definitely fall into the robot or "mech" category in my mind.
Speaking of "mechs" ... I think that term can also be indicative of another division line; that being the division between mechanical robots and biological creations. A biological creature (usually an artificial copy/replica or in Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, a "replicant") I would consider an android. These beings are specifically designed and created to replicate life - be that human or animal. That said, I think it is rare in science fiction to find "android" applied to non-human creatures. But my point is the limitations of the mech creations vs. the expansive functions, thought processes and apparent life of androids. Just another thing on this: If your androids have a biological component, it is conceivable that they could reproduce biologically, thus giving them one of the definitions of life. Sure, one might argue that a robot the creates a copy of itself is reproducing, and I would agree that the line gets blurry here, but is it really life, if a machine makes another machine? I would say only if that machine also shows other signs of life.
So, to get back to your original question: I would say the use of both robot and android could be confusing to some. After all, there might be bigots in your story that call androids robots out of spite. I think if you want to differentiate them, I would use android and mech or mechanoid or simply machine or something like these. Perhaps if you defined an acronym for one or both classes and then used that when referring to them in your story, that could help reduce any confusion. In the end, it's going to come down to whether your androids are truly different from your mechs and how much. Are they truly different? Define that difference and it will help your audience understand.
I'll now get off my soapbox and get back to my robot lab. ;->