Genealogy of Artificial Beings: From Ancient Automata to Modern Robotics

Abstract

This chapter is an extensive overview of the history of automata and robotics from the Hellenistic period, which saw the birth of science and technology, and during which lived the founders of modern engineering, to today. Contemporary robotics is actually a very young field. It was preceded by a 2000-years period in which highly sophisticated automata were built for very different purposes—to entertain, to impress or to amaze—at different times. You will see that the methods and techniques that were used to build these automata, and that largely contributed to the development of robotics, were at times imported from unexpected fields—astronomy, music, weaving, jewellery; and that the impulse that drove automata makers to build their artificial beings was far from rational, but rather rooted in the age-old mythical desire to simulate, and even to realize, an entity from inert materials.