The Story of The Mechanical Turk: the 18th Century Chess Automaton | The History of AI and Games #1

Join Tommy for the first of a new series in which we dive into the history of artificial intelligence, and discover how games have been an intrinsic part of the field since its very inception.

In this inaugural episode, we tell the story of 'The Mechanical Turk': a chess-playing automaton that wowed audiences across the US and Europe through the late 1700s and early 1800s. Plus we explore the scandal that surrounded it, and how it continues to influence modern computing today.

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Further Reading:

The Mechanical Turk: How a Chess-playing Hoax Inspired Real Computers

Untold History of AI: When Charles Babbage Played Chess With the Original Mechanical Turk

The Mechanical Turk – or the invisible, low-cost labour of automation

Horror Stories From Inside Amazon's Mechanical Turk

The Internet Is Enabling a New Kind of Poorly Paid Hell

Hybrid machine/human computing arrangement

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Chapters:
[00:00] Intro
[00:59] Setting the Scene
[02:08] The Story of the Mechanical Turk
[11:03] The Truth
[13:48] The Legacy
[18:17] Closing
[19:13] Credits

Episode music by @teknoaxe.
Intro Sting and Credit Music by @BenRidgeMusic

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AI and Games is a YouTube series on research and applications of Artificial Intelligence in video games.

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[AIandGames]

This is the first of two new video series coming to the channel, and I hope you like this slightly different approach.

'The History of AI and Games' will be joined by the first episode of 'Artifacts' later this month.

In the meantime, come hang out in our Discord server to discuss this episode (and much more) right here:

[Schmidtelpunkt]

In Germany the word "getürkt" is suspected to derive from the Mechanical Turk. With the foreign workers arriving in the 60s and 70s, the initial reference got eclipsed and it feels rather inappropriate. Also the dismissive connotation might not be too far off from its original intend: The Turkish Wars in the south east of Europe were still going on, less than a century ago the Turks had threatened Vienna. So the image of that Turk was probably chosen to rile the player a bit, a lot like modern games tend to present some kind of zeitgeist baddy - Russians, terrorists, mad billionaires etc.

[kakashi]

hi professor, the AI exam is tomorrow and im on week3 of the course, any tips on how to do 7 weeks of content overnight? Many thanks!

[himagainstill]

To think that 200 years ago someone inserted a player into the guts of the machine, while now we stick the machine into the guts of the player.

[emem]

9:00 You Know I'm Something of a Scientist Myself

[AlecWiese]

Imagine being Maelzel, trying for years to get your hands on the device, finally getting it at a discount. Then finding out the whole thing was bullshit.

But don’t feel bad for him, he carried on the grift after all 😂

[djbeema]

Hell yes, I'm so down for explorations of relevant history on this channel. Looking forward to more from this series!

[muzboz]

Enjoyed that! Looking forward to the next history one!

[LyingTube]

Eagerly looking forward to your no-doubt-upcoming treatise on the Colossus of Bletchley Park, this was a great piece on the Turk!

[Rickandmorty_com]

this video is similar to Cold Fusion's latest video on AI. He also spoke about Mechanical Turk and AI washing.

[Fyre_Blake]

Kempelen, it's inventor, was a highly accomplished individual. I am surprised what motivated him to resort to trickery?

[Onomere]

One minor nitpick:
Wolfgang vam Kempelen was indeed born in Bratislava. But he was Hungarian, his original name is Kempelen Farkas (farkas translate to wolf in german/english).

[Luanmm]

Yay, was waiting for the release of the historical series!

[nguyenxuannghia]

Just one question I leave for the Mechanical Turk, whether it's a hoax or not. It's how did its inventor tell about about its power source ? i.e did he explain how the Turk run on ? Gasoline, light energy, ... ? If he didn't explain that to the audience, they would assume the Turk is a perpetual motion machine which can play chess

[waded]

Excellent video, quite enjoyed this one!

[MegapiemanPHD]

I always saw The Mechanical Turk as a sort of magic trick. While it may not be an actual thinking machine, it's an entertaining and well made show.

[srisaksing]

In fact, Turk is an AI robot that travels back in time. It was impossible for people to stay inside for a long time. There were months of cross-country travel and hours of chess battles. It doesn't make any logical sense that someone must be able to see who is hiding inside. For a human being to stay in a small box for a long time and have to urinate and defecate is simply impossible, and there are many inventors who have come to test the Turk, it is impossible to deceive those inventors. The only possible reason is to go back in time. Or is Turk an AI from the future combined with the machines of that era?

[neferoku]

thanks for such an informative and interesting video

[alexrubio]

Thanks for teaching so well while you were at kings

[StarLightNow]

This is a valid video and I have learned a thing :)