The wish came first

An ancient Greek story described Talos, a man made of bronze. He was built rather than born. He guarded Crete and threw rocks at approaching ships. A made thing that acted on its own.

The wish kept returning in different materials. Jewish folklore told of the , a figure shaped from clay and animated through sacred words. Later, wrote letters and played instruments. In 1818, Frankenstein imagined a person assembled from dead matter and brought to life.

The material changed, but the question kept returning. Could people build something that acted alive?

The wanting ran ahead of the building. In 1770, a machine called the Mechanical Turk began playing chess before audiences in Europe and America. It appeared to play on its own, but a skilled human was hidden inside. The performance continued for more than eighty years.

The machine was a trick. The question it played with was already real.