Atlas Obscura on Slate is a blog about the world’s hidden wonders. Like us on Facebook and Tumblr, or follow us on Twitter. Warnings over the perils of artificial intelligence arms races have made ...
A mechanical marvel may have helped set Edgar Allan Poe on his life’s creative path. At the beginning of the 1770s, Wolfgang von Kempelen, a European inventor, premiered his newest creation: a robotic ...
An 18th Century automaton that could beat human chess opponents seemingly marked the arrival of artificial intelligence. But what turned out to be an elaborate hoax had its own sense of genius, says ...
A master magic builder from California has recreated an 18th Century automaton that took Europe and America by storm. For more than 80 years, Wolfgang von Kempelen's Mechanical Turk amazed people on ...
In 1770 a chess-playing robot, built by a Hungarian inventor, caused a sensation across Europe. It took the form of a life-size wooden figure, dressed in Turkish clothing, seated behind a cabinet ...
A master magic builder from California has recreated an 18th Century automaton that took Europe and America by storm. For more than 80 years, Wolfgang von Kempelen's Mechanical Turk amazed people on ...
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