The Russian lines "Я твой слуга / Я твой работник" (Ya tvoy sluga / Ya tvoy rabotnik, "I am your servant / I am your worker") (also on the rear sleeve of the album) during the intro and again during its repetition at the bridge are spoken in a pitched down voice, the main lyrics ("We're charging our batteries and now we're full of energy...") are "sung" through a vocoder; the line references the Slavic origins of the word 'robot'.

[2] The lyrics were also referenced in the title of a BBC Radio 4 documentary Kraftwerk: We Are the Robots, broadcast for the first time on Thursday, 22 November 2007.

[3] The band's performance of the song has varied significantly over time: For example, one report of a performance in 1997 describes "four legless robot bodies [being] lowered from a lighting rig and programmed to make mechanical movements to the music",[4] another from the following year describes the spectacle as "robot torsos and heads [being] suspended in the air, slowly twisting and waving as the music plays on",[5] and yet another describes witnessing on-screen "plastic-head representations of the band, stuck on dull gray torsos with mechanical arms and metal-rod legs".

[7] There was, however, "an air of farce" at one show in Ireland in 2008 when a curtain refused to close, disrupting the transformation of the band into robots.

David Stubbs from Melody Maker named "The Robots" Single of the Week, stating that the remix "is still outstanding — unspoilt by a slight House adaption, it's a perfect example of Kraftwerk's exact science and deadpan wit.