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The History of Robots – Dreams of Human Machines

The word ‘robot’ was coined in 1920 by a Czech author who wrote a play about human-like machines rebelling. But even the ancient Greeks dreamt of automated helpers. With the rapid development of computer technology in the second half of the 20th century, ideas of robots equipped with artificial intelligence became more and more firmly established.

One Day in 1770

One day in 1770, the Austro-Hungarian inventor Wolfgang von Kempelen had the honor of presenting his new innovation to Archduchess Maria Teresia at Schönbrunn Palace in Vienna. A large chest of drawers was wheeled into the hall, and behind it was a wooden figure of a man dressed in Turkish costume with a turban on his head to resemble an oriental magician.

On top of the desk was a chessboard, and Kempelen explained that his machine could play a game of chess against any of the spectators. Before the game began, the inventor opened the doors and drawers of the chest of drawers and lit a candle to show its interior. There was a seemingly complicated machinery of gears and rods, but nothing else.

The Turkish Chess Player

The figure grasped the pieces with his left hand and moved them mechanically across the board to the correct square. Even more impressive was that the figure also won the game.

Kempelen called his creation a chess automaton, but it soon became known as the mechanical Turk. No one had ever seen anything like it before, and no one could initially explain how it worked. Was the inventor in contact with evil spirits, or had he solved the puzzle with artificial intelligence?

The Chess-Playing ‘Mechanical Turk’

For more than 80 years, the wooden chess-playing Turk toured Europe and North America, initially with Kempelen and later with other owners. Everywhere it attracted great interest, and its reputation grew as it defeated such notables as Napoleon Bonaparte and Frederick II of Prussia.

When Kempelen brought the machine to Paris in 1783, both Benjamin Franklin and perhaps France’s greatest chess player, François-André Danican Philidor, had the chance to face it. The Turk defeated Franklin without much trouble, but lost his match to Philidor.

Eventually, the machine ended up in a museum in Philadelphia, where it was destroyed in a fire in 1854. By then, however, several observant onlookers, including the American writer Edgar Allan Poe, had seen through the hoax. Because it was a hoax.

Unveiling the Hoax

The machine was not controlled by advanced artificial intelligence, but by a human being hidden in the bowels of the agency. The real illusion was that the owner of the cabinet opened the doors and showed the interior in such a way that the person hiding inside could move between its different compartments without being detected.

This helper, who must have been a very skilled chess player, could see the movements on the board thanks to magnets on the underside of the board. In fact, the only thing that was mechanical was the movement of the wooden piece’s arms and face.

To give it a more realistic appearance, the machine was eventually fitted with a simple speech machine – a field pioneered by Wolfgang von Kempelen – so that at the right moment it could exclaim: “Chess!”

‘Automata’ – Sophisticated Toys for the Upper Classes

Although the chess automaton’s thought process was carried out by a human, the mechanics were advanced enough to arouse the admiration of onlookers. The design set the imagination in motion. One of those who dreamed of building his own thinking machine was the British mathematician Charles Babbage, who lost two games to the chess automaton in the early 19th century.

In 1821, he presented a model for a calculating machine, which he called the difference engine, and later he also tried to create a more advanced design, the analyzing machine, which is considered an early precursor to the 20th century computer revolution.

The Child of Its Time

The chess machine was also a child of its time. During the 18th century, a first wave of automation swept across Europe. Terms such as ‘robot’ or ‘artificial intelligence’ had not yet been coined – instead, people spoke of ‘automata’, from the Greek word automatos, meaning ‘self-propelled’. These were often sophisticated toys for nobility, royalty and other wealthy families.

No one mastered this art better than Frenchman Jacques de Vaucanson. In the 1730s, he created some of the most advanced automata yet seen, including a human-sized figure that could play 12 different melodies on a flute. Another version could play the tambourine.

But the Vaucanson invention that attracted the most interest was an eating duck. It was a life-size duck figure made of metal that could not only walk and move its wings, but also drink water and eat seeds from a human hand.