The Digesting Duck (Video of 1739 Automaton)

The inventor of the world’s first robot was born today in 1709. His name was Jacques de Vaucanson and his automaton, The Digesting Duck, thrilled Europe in the Spring of 1739. It’s still a marvel and this video of his masterpiece is well worth a gander*.

Making life-like machines goes forward today as robotics and artificial intelligence but I’m not much bothered by mechanical butlers and chess-playing computers. The line between biology and technology was already blurred before homo sapiens had fully evolved; indeed, the blurring contributed to our species’ arrival.

I’m more concerned with the less visible and more pervasive effort at making life-like information. This goes forward today also in two modes: data-based profiles and virtual identity. The former are temporary constellations of data points, created from our digital detritus, after the fact and outside of our control. The latter is a self-managed work-in-progress, created from our blog posts, social networking pages, cyberspace avatars, product reviews, et al. Both digital doppelgangers are new modes for the self in the nexus of human and machine and as such (in my view) merit even more care and caution than the advent of machines that can move and think on their own.

Stay tuned for further developments.

*Gander in the slang sense of “take a long look” is first recorded in 1887, from the notion of craning one’s neck like a goose.