The Turk: the first AI was a person

In Vienna, Wolfgang von Kempelen presents an automaton that plays chess. In fact, a chess player hidden in the cabinet moves the pieces. The Turk takes on Benjamin Franklin and Napoleon and is only destroyed in a fire in 1854. Today Amazon uses its name for a human labor service that feeds AI systems.

Source: Wikipedia, Mechanical Turk

Engraving by Joseph Racknitz (1789) with his theory of where the player hid. Public domain

See it on the timeline

lastday.at tells the story of the machines that gradually took over human work, from ancient Egypt to artificial intelligence, and counts down to the last day of work on Earth: March 20, 2030.

Open the full timeline