What is the Difference between androids and cyborgs?

Answer 1

As a Cyborg Anthropologist who studies human-machine interfaces and interactions, I'll take a stab at answering this question.

The word Cyborg comes from the concept of cybernetic organism which is a combination of both human and machine. The term was first developed by Manfred Kline. The term was coined in 1960 when Manfred Clynes and Nathan Kline used it in an article about the advantages of self-regulating human-machine systems in outer space.

Robots are machines that may or may not resemble humans (the Google bots that index the web, for instance, don't resemble humans, but ASIMO, the robot made by Honda, does) and are usually employed in assembly lines, as part of software programs -- to automate work that would take more time and energy to do by hand.

An Android is a robot or synthetic organisim designed to look and act like a human. While a robot can can be used to describe a machine that may or may not look like a human, the term android is reserved only for robots that resemble humans. One of the more recognizable examples of an android is Data from Star Trek.

Increasingly, we're seeing examples of what have come to be called Actroids, or androids that not longer existent within the realm of Science Fiction but actually resemble humans in action and reception to input. One current example is theActroid DER 2, an android resembling a Japanese female, that was demonstrated at the AKIBA Robot Festival in the Akihabara district of Tokyo in 2006.

A note on cyborgs, robots, androids, and cybernetic systems:

While robots may be part of a human-machine assembly line, the term "robot" is used to describe the machine part only, while cyborg or cybernetic assembly (which can also be referred to as an Actor-Network (a term coined by anthropologist Bruno Latour) can be comprised of multiple subjects working collectively in a process architecture. In this case, the human/computer interaction of robot/machine that occurs when one uses a laptop computer could be considered a cyborgian or cybernetic connection. Assembly line robots and human workers are part of a cybernetic system that produces vehicles.

Answer 2

Android is generally a robot that does look like a human, only it doesn't contain any flesh or organic matter. They're mostly resigned to the domain of science fiction, although researchers in various parts of Asia have unveiled some pretty convincing androids in the past few years. Occasionally, the term "android" is used interchangeable with "cyborg," but cyborgs are beings that are part mechanical and part organic. In fact, some theorists consider anyone whose body relies on a form of machinery in order to survive - such as a pacemaker or an insulin pump - to be a cyborg.