In countless other science fiction the creators rely on obedience from their superhumanly-strong machines. I think it was argued in Westworld that the machines had to be strong, ironically to protect humans from harm.
But it seems clear to me that Nathan in Ex Machina deliberately made his robots subhumanly frail — strong enough to be functional but without a knife, no match for any human almost. This is, of course, the smart way to go.
Did any other robot creator in fiction take this path before? What is the first example of frail robots?
I think I should be more clear: robots that ended up harming people but were physically fragile. Because an obvious example of fragile robots are those in Star Wars or even Silent Running.