ÄŒapek himself did not coin the word. He wrote a short letter in reference to th etimology in the Oxford English DIctionary in which he named his brother, the painter and writer Joseph as its actual originator: https://en.wikipedia.org/?title=Robot#cite_note-KapekWebsite-43

In an article in the Czech journal Lidové noviny in 1933, he explained that he had originally wanted to call the creatures laboÅ™i (“workers”, from Latin labor). However, he did not like the word, and sought advice from his brother Josef, who suggested “roboti”. The word robota means literally “corvée”, “serf labor”, and figuratively “drudgery” or “hard work” in Czech and also (more general) “work”, “labor” in many Slavic languages.

Actually, in Czech it is also “robot” not “robote” and it doesn’t mean servant. Robot always meant just robot (resp. machine that works by itself). Specifically, it comes from the play “Rossum’s Universal Robots” (1920) by Karel ÄŒapek.