Historical Automata
10 min read
What Is an Automaton?
Before machines could calculate, predict or converse, they learned to move. A history of automata and the machines that taught us to see intention in mechanism.
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Automaton
Exploring the machines, mechanisms and mechanical ingenuity that came before modern computing and artificial intelligence.
From intricate clockwork automata and mechanical inventions to the earliest ideas of programmable machines, this is where we explore the ingenuity that laid the foundations for the technology we build today.
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Historical Automata
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The Mechanical Turk: Where Was the Intelligence?
The Mechanical Turk appeared to play chess more than 250 years ago. Its secret was human, but the illusion raises a surprisingly modern question: where do we decide intelligence resides?
Historical Automata
10 min read
The Digesting Duck: The Machine That Pretended to Be Alive
In 1738, Jacques de Vaucanson built a mechanical duck that appeared to eat, drink and digest. Nearly three centuries later, its greatest trick raises a surprisingly modern question about artificial intelligence.
Historical Automata
8 min read
Maillardet's Automaton: The 200-Year-Old Machine That Remembered
Around 1800, Henri Maillardet built a machine that could draw, write poetry and preserve its creator's identity in brass.