TheMechanical
TurkPhantoms
“Archives, Access
& Artificial Intelligence”
London 15-17 January 2020
Liviu Pop
The Folklore Archive
of the Romanian Academy
Photo by Franck V. on Unsplash

TheTurk(1770-1854)
For a more detailed depicton please access:
https://romantic-circles.org/gallery/chess-player
Human pretending to be a machine
Baron Wolfgang von Kempelen (1769)

TheTurk(1770-1854)
For a more detailed depicton please access:
https://romantic-circles.org/gallery/chess-player
First algorithm solved by (fake) AI
The knight's tour

Year2018
Sold as a an artificial intelligence-
powered virtual assistant
Google Duplex calls in your name

Year2018
Sold as a an artificial intelligence-
powered virtual assistant
Google Duplex calls in your name
In other words, Duplex, which Google first
showed off last year as a technological
marvel using A.I., is still largely operated by
humans. While A.I. services like Google’s
are meant to help us, their part-machine,
part-human approach could contribute to a
mounting problem: the struggle to decipher
the real from the fake, from bogus reviews
and online disinformation to bots posing as
people.
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/22/
technology/personaltech/ai-google-
duplex.html

Year2014
Sold as a Virtual Assistant AI
Alexa on dedicated devices

Year2014
Sold as a Virtual Assistant AI
Alexa on dedicated devices
Amazon.com Inc. employs thousands of
people around the world to help improve
the Alexa digital assistant powering its line
of Echo speakers. The team listens to voice
recordings captured in Echo owners’
homes and offices. The recordings are
transcribed, annotated and then fed back
into the software as part of an effort to
eliminate gaps in Alexa’s understanding of
human speech and help it better respond to
commands.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/
articles/2019-04-10/is-anyone-listening-
to-you-on-alexa-a-global-team-reviews-
audio

Year2011
First wide spread voice assistant
Siri on iPhone 4

Year2011
First wide spread voice assistant
Siri on iPhone 4
Although Apple does not explicitly disclose it in
its consumer-facing privacy documentation, a
small proportion of Siri recordings are passed
on to contractors working for the company
around the world. They are tasked with grading
the responses on a variety of factors, including
whether the activation of the voice assistant was
deliberate or accidental, whether the query was
something Siri could be expected to help with
and whether Siri’s response was appropriate.
https://www.theguardian.com/
technology/2019/jul/26/apple-
contractors-regularly-hear-confidential-
details-on-siri-recordings#maincontent

"SomethingShe
CalledaFever"
Carolyn Steedman

Year2364
Data meets his evil brother
Star Trek Season 1 Episode 13 (1988)

Year2029
Cyborgs as puppets
Ghost in the Shell (1995)

ROBOTA(1960s)
Funny robots,robots mimicking humans
Stanislaw Lem (1921-2006)

Inthefuture
Human transferred into a machine
Metropolis (1927)

Tipu'sTiger(1780s-1790s)
Automaton attacking a fake human
Comissioned by the Tipu Sultan
https://www.vam.ac.uk/articles/tipus-tiger

TheMonk(1560)
For a more detailed depicton
please access:
https://americanhistory.si.edu/
collections/search/object/
nmah_855351
A monk that prays
Built for Charles V of Spain

TheGolem
A creature created from clay and written words
Jewish folklore
Rabbi Judah Loew of Prague (known as the Maharal; 1525-1609)
https://www.myjewishlearning.com/article/golem/

Year2367
Data meets his creator after he is
summoned.
Star Trek Season 4 Episode 3 (1990)

Year2367
Data becames himself again.
Star Trek Season 4 Episode 3 (1990)

Year2367
Data meets his creator after he is
summoned.
Star Trek Season 4 Episode 3 (1990)Mirrors mirrors
Year1927/2364
Are we in the same golem paradigm?

Thankyou
@liviu_pop