Robot
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Real Identity: Not Applicable
Appearances (BTAS): Christmas With The Joker, Heart of Steel Part One, Part Two, If You're So Smart, Why Aren't You Rich?, What Is Reality?, His Silicon Soul, Mask of the Phantasm, and Deep Freeze
Appearances (STAS): Fun and Games, Stolen Memories, The Main Man Part One, Part Two, Ghost in the Machine, and Obsession
Appearances (GG): Cat-N-Mouse, Cat in the Hand, Jailhouse Wreck, No, I'm Batgirl!!!, Signal Fires, and Cold Hands, Cold Heart
Appearances (BB): Zeta and Countdown
Appearances (TZP): All 13 Episodes of Season One, Absolute Zero, Wired Part Two, Resume Mission, Hunt in the Hub, On the Wire, and The Hologram Man
Appearances (SS): The New Kid, Child's Play, Trouble Squared, A League Of Their Own Part One, Blast From The Past, A League Of Their Own Part Two, Toys in the Hood, No Man's An Island, Where Rubber Meets The Road, and Kidnapped
Appearances (JL/U): War World Part One, Part Two, Twilight Part Two, Fearful Symmetry, Kid's Stuff, The Greatest Story Never Told, The Once and Future Thing Part One, The Ties That Bind, Epilogue, I Am Legion, Shadow of the Hawk, and To Another Shore
Powers/Skills: Enhanced Physical Attributes, Mechanical Aptitude, and Various Programmed Skill Sets
Voiced By: Roger Rose (Adbot), Jeff Glen Bennett (Cody Koala), David Coulter (Delivery Bot)
Robots draw their origins from the mythology of Greece. It is said that Hephaestus once constructed mechanical servants. The idea of robots was later dreamnt up by Archytas of Tarentum, a Greek mathematician in 4th century BC. He postulated "The Pigeon," a mechanical bird powered by steam. Al-Jazari, a Muslim inventor in the 12th century, created simple robots that played instruments with hydropower. Eventually, the notion of a human-like robot was brought by Leonardo da Vinci.
The first modern age robot was invented by George Devol in 1954. The final version was named the Unimate and was sold to General Motors. It was an arm with six degrees of freedom connected to a box connected to a simple computer. In 1961, they installed the Unimate in a New Jersey plant to lift hot pieces of metal. Today, different types of robots are widely used in assembly, exploration, manufacturing, mass production, research, surgery, transportation, and weapons. They are broadly defined as a "re-programmable multi-functional manipulator designed to move materials, parts, tools, or specialized devices through variable programmed motions for the performance of a variety of tasks," by the Robotics Institute of America.
As time goes on and technology becomes more and more revolutionized, development on robots have yielded humanoid versions. Coupled with the progress of artificial intelligence, there are stories of how one day, robots will rebel and destroy the human race. Isaac Asimov came up with the Three Laws of Robotics, a set of basic orders that should be given to every robot: a robot may not harm a human being, a robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, and a robot must protect its own existence.
Karl Rossum, founder of Cybertron Industries, headed his own research into artificial intelligence. He named it H.A.R.D.A.C. and gave it more and more tasks to complete independently. However, it came to the conclusion that humanity was obsolete and moved to first replace several key persons in Gotham City with F-7890-XYZ-56 robot duplicants. Commissioner Gordon, Mayor Hill, Karl Rossum, Detective Bullock and Bruce Wayne were all targets. Upon learning Bruce Wayne was Batman, H.A.R.D.A.C. made his duplicant the most advanced version with programmed emotions. These emotions are what led the duplicant to save Gotham rather than continue its creator's agenda. Robots were often misused by super villains as a diversionary tactic, such as the Joker and Riddler whereas others used them as weapons, like Toyman. Likewise, other examples of corrupted robots were the Dark Heart.
Undoubtedly, reocurring robot threats in the present partly influenced the minimal progress of robotics in the 2050's. Simple, programmed ones were given basic janitorial, marketing, and security functions. Under the auspices of the United States federal government, Dr. Selig was the leader of the Zeta Project. He led the creation of advanced synthoids, robots with quasi-humanoid features that used holographic projection to mimic humans, collect intelligence, and if required, assassination. With his own secret agenda, Selig implanted a conscience circuit in one synthoid and went ahead with creating semi-organic synthoids.