( January 19, 2021; Communications of the ACM )
Robots of all kinds are in widespread use today. They are often humanoid machines. However, the definition of a robot is unclear, as is the distinction from automata. Already Heron of Alexandria (1st century) created such devices. Leonardo da Vinci (1452–1519) also designed a wealth of drawings of sophisticated objects, see Leonardo da Vinci's Robot Lion and Leonardo's Self-driving Car. There were also fake automatons, e.g. the chess-playing Turk by Wolfgang von Kempelen (1770).
In the 18th century, automaton figures experienced their heyday. Some of these creations are still fully functional and are regularly demonstrated...
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