[HN Gopher] The Marvelous Automata of Antiquity (2018)
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The Marvelous Automata of Antiquity (2018)
Author : taupe-
Score : 37 points
Date : 2024-02-27 00:22 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (daily.jstor.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (daily.jstor.org)
| taupe- wrote:
| Humans for much of history have understood the implications and
| potential of 'artificiality.' It is important also to remember
| the etymology of art, not as the way we think of it now as a
| piece of paint on the wall to be looked at, but rather any kind
| of craft that utilizes human design and creativity. (see greek
| tekhne)
|
| This is just one obscure historical witness to this...
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| Nice find. I've been collecting Renaissance-era books about
| automata and early AI.
| verisimi wrote:
| I've heard it called 'ai' before.... But I do not see this at
| all. Do you think there's any comparison?
|
| Maybe it's a terms thing... Is an image ai? Is a piece of
| factory equipment?
| knodi123 wrote:
| I've heard AI used to describe the early versions of things
| that perform the duties that we always imagined an AI would.
| Like how Siri is basically just an expert system with some
| NLP, but if we had a genuinely intelligent helper, it would
| behave exactly like Siri across a narrow range of tasks.
| janandonly wrote:
| If you are interested in ancient Greek "robots" then I can
| recommend the book _Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient
| Dreams of Technology by Adrienne Mayor_.
|
| See also:
| https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691183510/go...
| taupe- wrote:
| Thank you!
| MyFirstSass wrote:
| If you're ever i Vienna i can really recommend the historical art
| museum, to my surprise i found myself in a room with dozens of
| automatons:
|
| https://www.khm.at/objektdb/?id=11227&L=0&q%5B%5D=automaton&...
|
| I was absolutely floored at the detail and the descriptions of
| what these different relics would actually do - super advanced!
| Many of them were made as centrepieces for banquets but looked
| way too important for that (can't impress fellow members of the
| aristocracy too much).
|
| I distinctly remember a ship that would drive around on the
| table, with music coming from inside of it - many of the men
| looked like they would move around on deck - and finally the ship
| would fire real tiny cannonballs across the table, imagine that
| at a dinnerparty in 1585, almost 500 years ago!
| simonw wrote:
| I've been really enjoying Oliver Pett's work recently -
| https://www.tiktok.com/@mechanicalcreations and
| https://www.youtube.com/@mechanicalOlly1977
|
| He was inspired to start building automata by the Cabaret
| Mechanical Theater in Covent Garden in the 80s/90s - which was my
| absolute favourite thing to do in London back then.
| anfractuosity wrote:
| I found both of these very impressive -
|
| * The Peacock Clock - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ilPlVRoUl_8
|
| * Silver swan automaton -
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AOXqCuqDOiI
|
| Both by James Cox (c. 1723-1800).
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