What do robots eat?

Robots, including the ones on a factory assembly line to Saudi Arabia's Sophia, don't consume food as organic heterotrophs do. Organisms like humans must consume food in order to procure energy and obtain matter necessary for growth. It's a matter of survival. However, robots are exempt from the second rule. read more

Mainly electricity. Robots run on batteries and so the majority of them don’t need to eat at all. Having said that Bristol University did produce a robot a few years ago that “ate” flies and used an acidic solution to convert the matter into yummy robot nosh which is then used as fuel in forty-eight microbial cells. read more

The question of what robots eat is deliberately playful. But the underlying issue is a significant one. It’s about the ways in which contemporary digital data analytics systems feed on a diet of data produced through human activity. read more

The word "robot" comes from a Slavic term meaning "work" or "labor" and is related to the work of serfs in feudal times. So the major application of the term is to machines that do work, or metaphorically to people who work in the manner of an automaton, without personal concern or judgment. read more