The Nightmare in Silicon Valley: 8 horror technologies that should scare you to death
Every night is fright night with what can happen once these scary technologies take hold in ways that you may not have imagined.
The diversity of the machines roboticists have dreamed up over the years is truly astounding. Here are some highs and lows from a discipline that stretches back further than you might think.
The Canard Digérateur, or Digesting Duck, is pretty gross. Built by Jacques de Vaucanson in 1739, it consumed kernels of grain and appeared to metabolize and defecate them. Reproducing digestion in an automaton would indeed be a spectacular feat. But the duck robot was just a mock-up of what Vaucanson hoped eventually to build. It collected food in one inner container and pooped pre-made feces from another.
Interestingly, the duck had a huge influence on popular culture. Voltaire wrote that "without...the duck of Vaucanson, you would have nothing to remind you of the glory of France." ("Sans...le canard de Vaucanson vous n'auriez rien qui fit ressouvenir de la gloire de la France.")
The duck is mentioned in Nathaniel Hawthorne's short story "The Artist of the Beautiful" and features prominently in Thomas Pynchon's Mason & Dixon. In 2006, Belgian artist Wim Delvoye introduced the world to his "Cloaca Machine", which really does digest food into excrement.
Caption by: Greg Nichols
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