Gods and Robots: Imagining Artificial Life in Antiquity - Livestream

Who first imagined robots and Artificial Intelligence? Long before medieval automatons, even before self-moving machines were invented in antiquity, the concepts of replicating life were explored in Greek myths about Talos, Jason, Medea, Daedalus, Prometheus, Hephaestus, and Pandora. Drawing on her book, “Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology,” Mayor discusses the timeless quest for artificial life, to show how automatons, self-moving devices, and Artificial Intelligence were imagined in antiquity, and how the ancients grappled with still-unresolved ethical concerns about biotechne, “life through craft”

Speaker: Adrienne Mayor, Stanford University

Attend the talk here.