Artificial intelligence · 1774
Jaquet-Droz automata
Clockwork boys that write, draw and play music, programmed by swappable cams.
Pierre Jaquet-Droz and his son built The Writer, The Draughtsman and The Musician between 1768 and 1774. The Writer holds about 6,000 parts and can be set to pen any text of up to 40 characters. They showed that complex lifelike behaviour could come from a stored, changeable program.