Meditations of the Machine

Designer Matt Kirkland has exposed the skeletal structures of several popular toys. See what’s hiding beneath the fluff here.

Filed by webmaster at 12:11 am under Automata, Robots
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Over the coming weeks, I hope to work through the long list of links I’ve assembled over the past few years on AI, philosophy of mind, robotics, etc. At heart, this blog is my modest version of Alexander Roob’s Alchemy and Mysticism (a fantastic book, by the way). It will take a while, but I think it will end up being a nice resource for anyone interested in these issues.

The most natural topic with which to start is with automata: machines that imitate life, from men to shitting ducks. (Of course, depending on how we restrict the definition, they also distribute soft drinks and candy bars…)

This page on Nature Interface is a great introduction to humankind’s fundamental interest in re-creating himself through the plastic arts and/or magic. Though the writing, and especially the editing, leaves a lot to be desired, the author hits all the major players from antiquity to the 19th century. (There are also some cool images of classic automata.)

For me, the things to note here are the role of alchemists (e.g., Albertus Magnus and Paracelsus) in making automata and the legend of Descartes’s Francine.

Next, let’s flesh the topic out with this decidedly better written summary of automaton history. Here I want to pay particular attention to the material on Von Kempelen. (He gets a lot of attention in Edison’s Eve by Gaby Wood, which we’ll come to later. Maybe we’ll even touch on episode three of The Sarah Connor Chronicles.)

Von Kempelen was the man when it came to automata, and he turned The Turk from a parlor trick into a European phenomenon. I will want to fictionalize a lot of his techniques in my novel. (Note the link within the text to his speech synthesis technology.)

Isn’t this fun?

Filed by webmaster at 10:52 pm under Automata
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