IMAGINING ANCIENT ROBOTS
How might we moderns imagine Emperor Asoka’s encounter with ancient “Roman robots”? How were the automatons guarding Buddha’s relics visualized when the tale was told in antiquity? Traditional guardian dvarapala and yaksha statues defended Buddhist stupas and shrines from the Mauryan Empire period. These were warrior figures wielding bows, maces, and swords, sometimes monumental (fig. 9.5). But no ancient illustrations of the legendary self-moving guardians of Buddha’s relics have been identified.
In Buddhist legends and artworks, the Buddha, his teachings, and his physical relics are protected by Vajrapani, the fierce bodhisattva armed with a lightning bolt. Remarkably, some of the earliest sculptural images of Buddha in Gandharan-style art of northern India (first century BC to seventh century AD) show Buddha in classical Greco-Roman garb and guarded by Heracles, the hero of classical myth. As Heracles merged with the persona of Vajrapani, the muscular, bearded guardian was shown wearing the Greek strongman’s signature lion-skin cape, and his club is transformed into Vajrapani’s distinctive vajra, the lightning bolt (fig. 9.6). Some reliefs show Heracles-Vajrapani carrying a sword, the weapon said to be wielded by the robots in the Lokapannatti story.57 The artistic syncretism that merges the Greco-Roman mythic figure of Heracles with Vajrapani as a defender of Buddha chimes with the Buddhist story that Greco-Roman-style robots served as guardians for Buddha’s relics. One might speculate that the automaton warriors defending the relics in the stupa might have been imagined as figures that combined classical Greek and Indian features.
FIG. 9.6. Buddha guarded by Heracles/Vajrapani, panel relief, Kushan, Gandhara, Pakistan, second to third century AD, inv. 1970,0718.1. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
The Arhats (Chinese Luohan), four original disciples of Buddha, were charged with defending the faith in early Indian sutras. Later in China, their number rose to eighteen. The earliest known artistic impressions of the Luohans (ninth century AD) depicted them as non-Chinese foreigners from the West. Although no link between the Luohans and the story of the “Roman” robots that defended Buddha’s relics has been identified, at some point the Luohans were imagined as fierce bronze automata with fighting skills. The theme appears in the Shaolin kung fu movie 18 Bronzemen (Joseph Kuo, 1976), set in the Qing Empire.
The fantasy of discovering long-forgotten automaton technology from some archaic civilization views robot technology with a mythological sensibility and lens. Notably, Hesiod suggested that the bronze robot Talos was of an earlier age. The notion of “ancient robots” has become a popular science-fiction theme. In 1958, the fantastical Buddha Park sculpture garden, Xieng Kuan near Vientiane, Laos, was created. The park is populated with colossal Hindu-Buddhist guardian statues (fig. 9.7), some of which resemble vintage robots. Made of concrete, they are deliberately designed to look like weathered antiquities. Meanwhile, in Japan, robots both imaginary and real were embraced with alacrity after World War II, a cultural feature that some attribute to Buddhist spirituality. Masahiro Mori, a devout Buddhist, not only was the first to articulate the Uncanny Valley effect; he also believed that robots could even have a “Buddhist nature.” In some forms of Japanese and Chinese Buddhism, moreover, there is no bright line between original and replica, essence and copy.58
FIG. 9.7. Imaginary robot-like Buddhist guardians, created in 1958 to look ancient, Buddha Park, near Vientiane, Laos. Left, photo Kerry Dunstone; right, photo Robert Harding; Alamy Stock.
Popular Japanese manga and anime artistic and literary forms arose after World War II and often featured artificial beings and robots. Notably, the anime-manga series Mazinger Z (1972–74; Tranzor Z in the United States) describes a superrobot modeled on ancient Talos-type steel prototype automata excavated by archaeologists on a Greek island loosely based on Rhodes. The conceit is that an ancient lost civilization, the “Mycene Empire,” deployed these remote-controlled robots in battles. Another more recent example is the anime film Laputa: Castle in the Sky (1986, Hayao Miyazaki for Studio Ghibli, Tokyo). Drawing on ancient Hindu epics, the story involves the revival and dismantling of long-lost robot guardians created by a vanished culture. An international group of retrofuturists, mecha artists, and robot model makers fabricate intricate replicas of “abandoned” robots, cast as survivors of antiquity unearthed in archaeological ruins. A typical example is “Whistlefax.” According to his fictional backstory, he arose from “the wastes of a world racked by violence,” the devastated “ruins of a once great civilization overrun by hordes of haunted robots. Possessed by the souls of angry soldiers, these rusted hulks of an age gone by are given a new purpose, to punish those who plunged the world into conflict without purpose but to the profit of the few.”59
When did the Buddhist tale of Asoka and the “Roman robots” first arise in India? The narrative appears to reflect genuine knowledge of actual engineering feats in the historical period of Ptolemy and Asoka, by the third century BC. We know that the Mauryan and Hellenistic courts sent envoys to each other, and they exchanged luxurious gifts to show off their cultural achievements. Note that the legend relates that plans for making automata reached India, and the emperor of the Greco-Roman West sent a gift box containing a robot to Asoka. One cannot hope to pinpoint the original date of the legend. But it seems safe to assume that Asoka and his contemporaries would have been familiar with—and perhaps even observed plans or miniature scale models of—automata and other mechanical marvels in the West.
Mechanical devices and automata in mythology and in real life provoked questions about ontology, humans and nonhumans, nature and artifice; they challenged the borders separating illusion, reality, and possibility. A large group of myths show that animated statues were certainly conceivable at a very early date, long before historical mechanical devices proved that imitating life with technology was practical. “Ancient mechanics surprised its audience,” remarks Sylvia Berryman, and “experience with technology changed views about what results could be produced,” about what might be possible. Human imagination and curiosity drive creativity and innovation.60 Mythological stories about artificial life and as-yet-unknown technology can be considered another, valid kind of “experience.” Imaginative scenarios in myth might well have helped shape ancient ideas and speculations about what results might be produced, what wonders might be possible, if only one possessed the radically superior technology and expertise of a Daedalus, Prometheus, or Hephaestus.
Were some marvels of artificially created life in the mythic traditions cultural fantasies that embellished and extrapolated real-life theories of technology or actual—if simpler—technological experiments? Or, conversely—just as modern science fiction can anticipate future scientific discoveries and sometimes even inspire technological innovations—is it possible that tales of divine and legendary automata and devices challenged and inspired living inventors to design self-moving objects and machines? Were mythic narratives and scientific imagination interrelated? The AI historian and futurist George Zarkadakis considers the links between old stories about robots and AI research. He proposes a feedback loop, a coevolution between mythic narratives and “scientific endeavors throughout history.”61 Speculations about original influence are impossible to resolve. But one can discern mythical chords within some historical inventions in antiquity. Indeed, it is striking that, just as ancient mythology about artificial life and self-moving devices imagined technological wonders made by divine craftsmen, so many historical inventors crafted automata and mechanisms to illustrate or evoke the ancient myths.
Millennia ago, visionaries initiated a series of “science-fiction” thought experiments about superior beings creating artificial life, expressed in mythical language. These imaginary automata, especially those like Talos and Pandora, with physically realistic forms and quasi-conscious “minds” that could interact with human beings on earth, evoked ambivalent reactions of awe, hope, and terror. Later, a group of brilliant inventors constructed real automata and self
-moving devices that replicated natural forms, and their speculations and designs stimulated further experiments and innovations. As in the world of mythology, real automata and machines could be used to dazzle, deceive, and dominate. As we saw in chapter 8, inherent in the Pandora myth and proclaimed in Sophocles’s paean to human ingenuity, techne, and ambition is a clear warning that these gifts can lead humans to glory or to evil.
The exciting dream of artificial life, first spun in storytelling imaginations, began to be realized in technological designs and engineered machines in antiquity. The next two millennia witnessed immense technological change. Yet by the end of the twentieth century, the journey of human creative vision and innovation had really only just begun. Advances are now accumulating at warp speed. Suspended above the uncanny abyss of replicating life itself, we still swing between hope and terror unleashed by humans’ insatiable quest to imitate and improve nature.
PLATE 1 (FIG. 1.4). “Death of Talos,” Ruvo vase detail. Album / Art Resource, NY.
PLATE 2 (FIG. 1.5). Medea watches as Jason uses a tool to unseal the bolt in Talos’s ankle held by a small winged figure of Death, as Talos collapses into the arms of Castor and Pollux. Red-figure krater, 450–400 BC, found at Montesarchio, Italy. “Cratere raffigurante la morte di Talos,” Museo Archeologico del Sannio Caudino, Montesarchio, per gentile concessione del Ministero dei Beni e delle Attività Culturali e del Turismo, fototeca del Polo Museale della Campania.
PLATE 3 (FIG. 1.9). Foundry scene, artisans making a realistic bronze statue of an athlete, in pieces, surrounded by blacksmith tools. Attic red-figure kylix, from Vulci, about 490–480 BC, by the Foundry Painter. Bpk Bildagentur / Photo by Johannes Laurentius / Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen, Berlin / Art Resource, NY.
PLATE 4 (FIG. 7.4). Blacksmith at work, with tools, red-figure kylix, late sixth century BC, 1980.7. Bpk Bildagentur / Photo by Johannes Laurentius / Antikensammlung, Staatiche Museen, Berlin / Art Resource, NY.
PLATE 5 (FIG. 2.1). Medea, looking back at old Pelias (left), waves her hand over the ram in the cauldron. Jason places a log on the fire, and Pelias’s daughter, right, gestures in wonder. Attic black-figure hydria, Leagros Group, 510–500 BC, inv. 1843,1103.59. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
PLATE 6 (FIG. 5.1). Realistic bronze ram. Was the sculptor of this life-size ram inspired by the story of Daedalus’s true-to-life ram dedicated to Aphrodite in the time of King Cocalus? Bronze Ram of Syracuse, Sicily, third century BC, Museo Archeologico, Palermo, Scala / Art Resource, NY.
PLATE 7 (FIG. 5.5, LOWER RIGHT). Athlete, fourth to second century BC, recovered off the coast of Croatia in 1996, Museum of Apoxyomenos, Mali Losinj, Croatia. Photo by Marie-Lan Nguyen, 2013.
PLATE 8 (FIG. 7.7, TOP). Hephaestus (Sethlans) and assistant (Etule) making an artificial horse (Pecse), Etruscan bronze mirror, fourth century BC, from Orvieto, BnF Cabinet des Medailles, Bronze.1333.
PLATE 9 (FIG. 7.8). Athena making a clay model of a horse; she is holding a handful of clay and there is a pile of clay at her feet. Above left, a saw, drill, and bow drill. The horse’s back leg is unfinished. Athenian red-figure wine jug, about 460 BC, F 2415. Bpk Bildagentur / Photo by Johannes Laurentius / Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen, Berlin / Art Resource, NY.
PLATE 10 (FIG. 6.8). Prometheus, seated, constructing the first human skeleton, using a mallet to attach the arm bone to the shoulder. Carnelian intaglio gem, date unknown, perhaps Townley Collection, inv. 1987,0212.250. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
PLATE 11 (FIG. 6.11). Prometheus using a mallet to make a skeleton, chalcedony gem, first century BC, Thorvaldsens Museum, Denmark, acc. no. 185.
PLATE 12 (FIG. 8.3). Epimetheus and Pandora, right; on left, Zeus and Hermes exchange a conspiratorial smile. AN1896–1908 G.275 attributed to the Group of Polygnotos, Attic red-figure pottery volute-krater, about 475–425 BC. Image © Ashmolean Museum, University of Oxford.
PLATE 13 (FIG. 8.4). Zeus holding Pandora, with goddess (Athena?) and Hermes. Attic black-figure amphora, Diosphos Painter, about 525–475 BC, F 1837. Bpk Bildagentur / Photo by Johannes Laurentius / Antikensammlung, Staatliche Museen, Berlin / Art Resource, NY.
PLATE 14 (FIG. 8.7). Detail, Pandora admired by gods and goddesses, on the red-figure calyx krater by the Niobid Painter, about 460 BC, inv. 1856,1213.1. © The Trustees of the British Museum.
EPILOGUE
AWE, DREAD, HOPE
DEEP LEARNING AND ANCIENT STORIES
Ancient myths articulated timeless hopes and fears
about artificial life, human limits, and immortality.
What could we—and Artificial Intelligence—learn from the classical tales?
THE MIX OF exuberance and anxiety aroused by a blurring of the lines between nature and machines might seem a uniquely modern response to the juggernaut of scientific progress in the age of technology. But the hope—and trepidation—surrounding the idea of artificial life surfaced thousands of years ago in the ancient Greek world. Imaginative myths expressed and struggled with the awe, dread, and hope summoned by the creation of animated statues, attempts to surpass human limits, and the pursuit of immortality. This is a discussion one might say that the ancient Greeks began.1
The question of what it meant to be human obsessed the ancient Greeks. Time and again, their stories explore the promises and perils of staving off age and death, enhancing mortals’ capabilities, replicating nature. The complex network of myths about Prometheus, Jason and the Argonauts, Medea, Daedalus, Hephaestus, Talos, and Pandora—all raised basic questions about the boundaries between biological and manufactured beings.
The most enduring, best-loved Greek myths—along with many other long-forgotten ancient tales—spin thrilling adventures well worth knowing for their own sake. But when we recognize the old stories as inquiries into biotechne (bios, life; techne, craft), these “science fictions” of antiquity take on new significance. Deeply imbued with metaphysical insight and forebodings about divine and human manipulation of natural life, the mythical stories seem startlingly of our moment.
The fantasies of imitating and augmenting life inspired haunting dramatic performances on the stage and indelible illustrations in classical vase paintings, sculpture, and other artworks. Meanwhile, in about 400 BC the philosopher-engineer Archytas caused a sensation with the first mechanical bird in flight. By the Hellenistic era, Heron of Alexandria and other brilliant engineers were devising a multitude of automated machines driven by hydraulics and pneumatics. The Greeks recognized that automata and other artifices in natural forms—whether imagined or actual—could be either harmless or dangerous, and they could be used for work, sex, spectacle, or religion, or to inflict pain or death. Clearly, biotechne, both real and imaginary, fascinated the ancients.
Taken together, the myths, legends, and lore of past cultures about automata, robots, replicants, animated statues, extended human powers, self-moving machines, and other artificial beings, and the authentic technological wonders that followed, constitute a virtual library and museum of ancient wisdom and experiments in thinking, a priceless resource for understanding the fundamental challenges of biotechnology and synthetic life on the brink today. A goal of this book has been to suggest that on deeper levels the ancient myths about artificial life can provide a context for the exponential developments in artificial life and Artificial Intelligence—and the looming practical and moral implications. I hope that rereading those ancient stories might enrich today’s discussions of robotics, driverless cars, biotechnology, AI, machine learning, and other innovations.
We saw how the god Hephaestus made a fleet of “driverless” tripods that responded to commands to deliver food and wine. Even more remarkable was the covey of life-size golden female robots he devised to do his bidding. According to Homer, these divine servants were in every way “like real young women, with sense and reason, strength, even voices, and they were endowed with all the learning of immortals.” More than twenty-five hundred years later, Artifi
cial Intelligence developers still aspire to achieve what the ancient Greeks imagined that their god of technological invention was capable of creating.
Hephaestus’s marvels were envisioned by an ancient society not usually considered technologically advanced. Feats of biotechne were dreamed up by a culture that existed millennia before the advent of robots that win complex games, hold conversations, analyze massive mega-data, and infer human desires. But the big questions are as ancient as myth: Whose desires will AI robots reflect? From whom will they learn?
In 2016, an experiment in AI machine learning became a cautionary tale, when Microsoft invented the teenage fem-chatbot Tay. Intricately programmed to mimic neural networks in the human brain, Tay was supposed to learn from her human “friends” on the social network Twitter. She was expected to articulate conversational gambits without filters or behavioral supervision. Within hours of Tay’s going live on Twitter, malicious followers conspired to cause the bot to morph into a tweeting troll spewing racist and sexist vitriol. Within days, Tay was terminated by her makers. Her easily corrupted learning system dampened optimism about self-educating AI and smart robots, but only momentarily. Tay’s replacement, Zo (2107) was supposedly programmed to avoid chatting about religion and politics, but she too went rogue on Twitter.2
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