The checkered history of automation

Like Kempelen’s Turk, Vaucanson’s Canard Digérateur would outshine all his other inventions, including a perhaps more impressive automaton flautist he had designed earlier in his career. However, while the Turk inspired scientists by demonstrating what could be, the digesting duck showed mechanical systems that had more immediate applications. Vaucanson’s duck was the first device to use India rubber, now used in tires, tubes, gloves, and countless other items. The duck also made use of a technology that had been pivotal to the emergence of the first programmable automatons in the 13th century – camshafts. A cam resembles a wheel with a bump, which strike a lever as it rotates, providing devices with precise and regular motion. Contraptions like Vaucanson’s duck placed cams in the limelight, and they were subsequently incorporated into designs for a wide variety of proposed machinery, including early internal combustion engines.

Sex Kittens go to College, Phoenix goes to Mars

On November 25, 1930, in slightly smaller text than “All Urged to Support Senior Dance”, the Armour Tech News carried the headline “Noted Scientist to Demonstrate Mechanical Man.” The "Noted Scientist" was from Westinghouse Electric, a company most famous for its association with Nicola Tesla and its battles with Edison in the 19th century. However, in the early half of the 20th century, it was eagerly pursuing a variety of emerging technologies, including the recently named field of robotics. In 1926, Westinghouse created the first robot, Mr. Televox, a cardboard cutout of a humanoid figure which was connected to various devices via phone lines, and allowed users to turn equipment off and on using voice commands. Televox was followed by Rastus, the “mechanical man” from the Armour Tech News article. Rastus was described as a “mechanical slave” who could “perform various duties at the sound of his master’s voice with a quiet, astonishing efficiency.” The most famous robot Westinghouse created was Elektro. On debut at the 1939 New York World’s Fair the seven-foot, 265 pound golden giant walked, talked, and smoked cigarettes. Elektro was built in secrecy, and when it was unveiled it seemed to be an artefact from the future – however the robot, and many other 20th century emerging tech, had links to the work of Kempelen and Vaucanson.

While the Turk consumed a large portion of Wolfgang von Kempelen’s life, it had taken him a relatively tiny amount of time to produce. The majority of his life was devoted to a far less glamorous project called Kempelen’s Speaking Machine, which he started the same year he exhibited the Turk, and did not finish until 1804, the year he died. The Speaking Machine was an attempt to artificially recreate the human vocal tract, using bellows to force air through a fake mouth, initially made from the bell of a clarinet and finally fashioned from India rubber. Kempelen’s idea was resurrected twice after his death, the second time by a young Alexander Graham Bell, whose fixation on elocution would eventually lead him to contribute to the invention of the telephone. Following the invention of the telephone, Edison was motivated to create a device that could “play back” sounds over the new system, and invented the phonograph, a more advanced version of which would eventually give Elektro its booming voice.

Elektro was a publicity stunt for Westinghouse, and it worked, attracting people from all over the world and generating big dollars. Like the Turk, it captured a surging public sentiment that the future would contain technological marvels – a sentiment that was borne out within the century. Ironically, Elektro’s own future was substantially less than Utopic. The robot was last seen in the 1960 film “Sex Kittens go to College” (tagline: You Never SAW a Student Body Like This!), where it starred as “Thinko”, a funk machine accompanied by an entourage of four strippers and a monkey. Following Sex Kittens, Elektro was decapitated and his body was sold for scrap. His legacy, however, lives on.

While Westinghouse’s promise that robots would assume housekeeping responsibilities and entertain children was not entirely sincere, it was eventually, partially, proven accurate. Over 2.5 million models of Roomba, the robotic vacuum cleaner, have been sold since 2002 and robotics has exploded in the consumer and military markets. Even the probes NASA is sending to explore other planets are, in many ways, descended from Elektro. These technologies are the kind of magic that Wolfgang von Kempelen would definitely appreciate.

Kyle Sherer

For more information on the topics discussed, follow these links:

Wired article on the Turk.

The Turk The Westinghouse robots The Cleveland Free Times on Elektro. Footage of Elektro at the 1939 World Fair. Guardian article on the Digesting Duck Von Kempelen's Speaking Machine.