The automata described in the Iliad are not the only self-moving entities in ancient literature imagined as possessing some for…
The automata described in the Iliad are not the only self-moving entities in ancient literature imagined as possessing some for of intelligence and agency. In the Argonautic, for example, a supernatural oak beam in Jason’s ship, the Argo, can speak and prophesy. Even more compelling in terms of an ancient vision of “Artificial Intelligence,” however, are the remarkable ships of the Phaeacians, inhabitants of the technologically marvelous land encountered by Odysseus, in Homer’s Odyssey (7-8). Phaecian ships require no rudders or oars, no human pilots, navigators, or rowers, but are steered by thought alone. The Homeric myth envisions the vessels as controlled by some sort of centralized system, with access to a vast data archive of “virtual” maps and navigation charts of the entire ancient world.
Adrienne Mayor. 2018. Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.