![]() ![]() Eventually, these karakuri (Japanese for "gadget") made their way into the home and became novelties, similar to our mechanical banks here in the West, only much more sophisticated. ![]() The Japanese fascination with robots goes back to the late 15 th century when religious stage productions featuring small, clockwork actors entertained followers in elaborate outdoors festivals. Like the Draughtsman, the Writer's eyes also follow along as he writes, and he even dips his quill into a nearby inkwell, shaking it off just before writing so as not to drip on the page. ![]() However, the phrase he is currently set to write-"Les automates / Jaquet Droz / a neuchatel"-has not been altered in quite some time since it takes about eight hours to change. With around 6000 parts, the Writer is not only the most complex of the trio, but it also perhaps the most astonishing in that he can be "programmed" to write a custom phrase up to 40 characters long, including appropriate spaces between words. While she plays, her head and eyes move to follow her hands, her chest expands as she "breathes," and she even gives a polite bow between each song. Although it would be easy to fake this effect by having a music box play under her while her hands simply hovered over the keys, the watchmakers have her actually play the piano, striking the keys with her independently moving fingers to produce the correct notes. The Musician is a female automaton, made using approximately 2500 parts, that can play five different songs on her custom-made organ. As if that wasn't impressive enough, his eyes follow his hand as it draws, he sometimes shifts in his chair, and he even occasionally picks up the pencil to blow graphite dust from the page. His drawings, including a dog, a dancing nobleman and woman, Cupid driving a chariot pulled by a butterfly, and a portrait of King Louis XV, are directed by a series of cams-rotating metal disks that move levers at a predetermined time and direction. The first is The Draughtsman, a young boy made from about 2000 parts that is capable of drawing pictures with the graphite pencil in his hand. After touring for a decade, the three automatons were eventually sold for 75'000 francs to the Musee d'Art et d'Histoire in Neuchatel, Switzerland, where they are still displayed and operated to this day. But their reputation didn't always proceed them, so they created "The Three Automatons" between 17, and toured with them to entertain and impress prospective clients. Pierre Jaquet-Droz, his son Henri-Louis, and their business partner Jean-Frederic Leschot were Swiss watchmakers of exceptional talent who sold timepieces to some of the richest noblemen in Europe in the late 1700s and early 1800s. Here are just some of these early androids (and even one duck) that convinced much of the world that the robopocalypse was just around the corner. However, the same thing was said centuries ago when clockmakers-using little more than gears, springs, cams, and levers-built complex machines, known as automatons, that could mimic the actions of humans to a startling degree. Some would say we're getting closer to that possibility as computer technologies evolve and the first attempts at artificial intelligence are developed. Since the Greeks first told the myth of Pygmalion, who wished the statue he loved would come to life, it seems man has been trying to build a perfect replica of himself.
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