HUMANOIDS: Self-directed robots invented to serve & guard mankind
"With Folded Hands" is a 1947 sf novelette by Jack Williamson (1908–2006). His influence for this story was in the aftermath of WWII & the atomic bombings of Japan & his concern that "some of the technological creations we had developed with the best intentions might have disastrous consequences in the long run." The story was followed by a novel-length rewrite, with a different setting & inventor. This, serialized as ...& Searching Mind, was finally published as The Humanoids (1948). He followed with a sequel, The Humanoid Touch, published in 1980.