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📷AI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking about Intelligent MachinesStephen Cave (ed.) et al.Search in this bookBuy on Amazon📷DisclosureContents

ExpandFront Matter
Introduction: Imagining AI
CollapsePart I Antiquity to Modernity
1 Homer’s Intelligent Machines: AI in Antiquity
2 Demons and Devices: Artificial and Augmented Intelligence before AI
Collapse3 The Android of Albertus Magnus: A Legend of Artificial Being
3.1 Introduction
3.2 The Oracular Head
3.3 Medieval Origins
3.4 Debunking the Legend
3.5 Early Modern Interpretations
3.6 The Mechanics of the Speaking Statue
3.7 Conclusion
Note
Reference List
4 Artificial Slaves in the Renaissance and the Dangers of Independent Innovation
5 Making the Automaton Speak: Hearing Artificial Voices in the Eighteenth Century
6 Victorian Fictions of Computational Creativity
7 Machines Like Us? Modernism and the Question of the Robot
ExpandPart II Modern and Contemporary
ExpandEnd Matter< Previous chapter
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Navbar Search Filter Oxford AcademicAI Narratives: A History of Imaginative Thinking about Intelligent MachinesComputational PhysicsOxford Scholarship OnlineBooksJournals Enter search termSearchChapterGet access 📷3 The Android of Albertus Magnus: A Legend of Artificial Being
Minsoo Kang,Ben Halliburtonhttps://doi.org/10.1093/oso/9780198846666.003.0004Pages72–94
Published:February 2020📷 Annotate

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Abstract

In medieval and early modern writings, there is a cluster of stories concerning an artificial construct in the shape of a human body or a head that is animated for the purpose of divination, associated with such figures as Gerbert of Aurillac, Robert Grosseteste, Albertus Magnus, and Roger Bacon. Among them, the Albertus legends have been retold numerous times in interesting variations that provide insight into the changing attitudes towards intellectual magic. Given the fact that the wondrous object is described as being able to converse and even reason, its nature as a kind of medieval AI has made it an object of interest in recent books on AI, robotics, and posthumanity. In this article, the major appearances of Albertus’s speaking statue/head story will be examined in detail to show that the explanation for the wonder moved from astrology to demonic agency, as well as to pure mechanics.Keywords: Albertus Magnus, oracular head, magic, divination, idolatry, android, Gabriel Naudé, Alonso TostadoComputational PhysicsSubjectCollection: Oxford Scholarship OnlineYou do not currently have access to this chapter.📷Get help with accessSign in
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