The word 'robot' was only coined as recently as 1921 by Czech playwright Karel Čapek, from the Old Church Slavonic for slave labour. The word then achieved widespread currency in the science fiction community, to the extent that when technology advanced far enough to actually create robots the word was transplanted from fiction to reality. But the idea of creating artificial life in our own image is, of course, much, much older.
In 18th century Austria, the Mechanical Turk (a chess-playing automaton) was accused of seducing and subsequently murdering a young noblewoman. The fact that the Turk's inner workings actually concealed a rather cramped Venetian dwarf was not widely known at the time.
Around the 15th century the Lords of the Golden horn, the sultans of the Ottoman Empire, were pleased to entertain a certain Arab who reputedly produced automata in the shapes of birds, fountains and beautiful women, which would variously fly, burble and sing. Although records of the Arab's works remain, none of the devices themselves have survived.
The Ancient Greeks had their legends of Pygmalion, whose love for his sculpture brought her to life.
And, of course, someone-or-other supposedly made someone or something in His or Her image, out of clay, spit, blood, wax, ribs and various other organs -- whatever came to hand, really -- a long, long time ago.
It's funny that for most of us robots suggest the futuristic, when the idea is one of the oldest we have.
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Blog by the ever witty Hans.
Interestingly enough, the Mechanical Turk was the first 'machine' to famously defeat Napoleon in a game of chess.
ReplyDeleteOf course, as Emperor I'd hazard a guess that he had a very hard time finding someone willing to actually win a game against him.
Little did he know that the grand master who operated the Mechanical Turk had no such qualms - and was protected by anonymity.