Robots rapidly advancing from assistants, to becoming our close companions to replacing us and merging with us as Robot-human hybrids

A robot, is any automatically operated machine that replaces human effort, though it may not resemble human beings in appearance or perform functions in a humanlike manner. A robot is a machine—especially one programmable by a computer—capable of carrying out a complex series of actions automatically. A robot can be guided by an external control device, or the control may be embedded within.