The first industrial robot went to work at General Motors in 1961.

Named Unimate, GM put It to work in the spring of 1961 without fanfare – not because they were worried about an uproar over it one day taking the jobs away from many people, but because they were concerned it wouldn’t work out. Fortunately it did, of course, and today robotics is a multi-BILLION-dollar worldwide industry. The original Unimate is on display at the Smithsonian in Washington D.C.