Written by
Aaron Hertzmann, Affiliate Faculty of Computer Science, University of Washington
This article is published in collaboration with Futurity.
This is what the ancient Greeks had to say about robotics and AI
古希腊人怎么看机器人和人工智能？
Historians usually trace the idea of automata to the Middle Ages, when humans first invented self-moving devices, but the concept of artificial, lifelike creatures dates to the myths and legends from at least about 2,700 years ago, says Adrienne Mayor, a research scholar in the classics department in the School of Humanities and Sciences at Stanford University. These ancient myths are the subject of Mayor’s latest book, Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology (Princeton University Press, 2018).
“Our ability to imagine artificial intelligence goes back to the ancient times...”
斯坦福大学人文科学学院古典系研究学者Adrienne Mayor表示，历史学家通常将自动机的概念追溯到中世纪，当时人类首次发明了自动设备；但栩栩如生的人造生物概念至少可以追溯到2700年前的神话和传说。这些古老的神话是Mayor最新著作《神与机器人：神话、机器和科技的古老梦想》（普林斯顿大学出版社，2018出版）所探讨的主题。
“Our ability to imagine artificial intelligence goes back to the ancient times,” says Mayor, who is also a fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences. “Long before technological advances made self-moving devices possible, ideas about creating artificial life and robots were explored in ancient myths.”
“我们想象人工智能的能力可以追溯到古代，” 行为科学高级研究中心的研究员Mayor表示，“早在技术进步使自动设备成为可能之前，古代神话就探索了创造人造生命和机器人的想法。”
Mayor, a historian of science, says that the earliest themes of artificial intelligence, robots, and self-moving objects appear in the work of ancient Greek poets Hesiod and Homer, who were alive sometime between 750 and 650 BCE.
The story of Talos, which Hesiod first mentioned around 700 BCE, offers one of the earliest conceptions of a robot, Mayor says.
Mayor是一名科学历史学家, 她认为，人工智能、机器人和自动物体的概念最早出现在古希腊诗人赫西俄德和荷马的作品中，他们生活在公元前750年至650年之间。
Mayor说，赫西俄德在公元前700年左右首次提到塔罗斯的故事，这是机器人最早的概念之一。
The myth describes Talos as a giant bronze man that Hephaestus, the Greek god of invention and blacksmithing, built. Zeus, the king of Greek gods, commissioned Talos to protect the island of Crete from invaders. He marched around the island three times every day and hurled boulders at approaching enemy ships.
传说中，塔洛斯是希腊工匠之神赫菲斯托斯建造的一个巨大的青铜人。众神之王宙斯命令塔洛斯保护克里特岛不受入侵者侵犯。他每天绕着小岛走三圈，向靠近的敌舰投掷石块。
At his core, the giant had a tube running from his head to one of his feet that carried a mysterious life source of the gods the Greeks called ichor. Another ancient text, Argonautica, which dates to the third century BCE, describes how sorceress Medea defeated Talos by removing a bolt at his ankle and letting the ichor fluid flow out, Mayor says.
在巨人的核心部位，一根管子从他的头部一直穿到到他的一只脚，管子里有众神赋予的神秘生命之源——希腊人称之为“灵液”。Mayor说，另一篇可以追溯到公元前三世纪的古代文献《阿耳戈英雄纪》描述了美狄亚女巫如何通过拔掉塔罗斯脚踝上的一个螺栓、让灵液流出，从而打败他。
The myth of Pandora, first described in Hesiod’s Theogony, is another example of a mythical artificial being, Mayor says. Although much later versions of the story portray Pandora as an innocent woman who unknowingly opened a box of evil, Mayor says Hesiod’s original described Pandora as an artificial, evil woman Hephaestus built and Zeus ordered to Earth to punish humans for discovering fire.
“There is a timeless link between imagination and science.”
Mayor说，潘多拉的神话最早出现在赫西俄德的《神谱》中，是另一个神话人造生命的例子。尽管后来的版本把潘多拉描述成一个无辜的女人，她在毫不知情的情况下打开了一个邪恶的盒子，但Mayor说，赫西俄德在原著中把潘多拉描述成一个邪恶的人造女人，是赫菲斯托斯用黏土做成的第一个女人，宙斯命令她去地球惩罚发现火的人类。
“想象力和科学之间有着永恒的联系。”
“It could be argued that Pandora was a kind of AI agent,” Mayor says. “Her only mission was to infiltrate the human world and release her jar of miseries.”
“可以说潘多拉是一种人工智能代理，” Mayor说。“她唯一的使命就是潜入人类世界，释放自己的痛苦。”
In addition to creating Talos and Pandora, mythical Hephaestus made other self-moving objects, including a set of automated servants, who looked like women but were made of gold, Mayor says. According to Homer’s recounting of the myth, Hephaestus gave these artificial women the gods’ knowledge. Mayor argues that they could be considered an ancient mythical version of artificial intelligence.
The ancient myths that Mayor examined in her research grapple with the moral implications of Hephaestus’ creations.
Mayor介绍道，除了创造了塔罗斯和潘多拉，神话中的赫菲斯托斯还创造了其它自动化体，包括一套自动奴仆。根据荷马对这个神话的叙述，赫菲斯托斯为这些人造女性赋予神的知识。Mayor认为，她们可以被视为古代神话版的人工智能。
Mayor在她的研究中考证古代神话，是为了搞清楚赫菲斯托斯创造人造作品的道德含义。
“Not one of those myths has a good ending once the artificial beings are sent to Earth,” Mayor says. “It’s almost as if the myths say that it’s great to have these artificial things up in heaven used by the gods. But once they interact with humans, we get chaos and destruction.”
Mayor says the myths underscore humanity’s fascination with creating artificial life.
Mayor说：“一旦这些人造生命被送到地球上，这些神话就没有一个是好结局。这些神话就好像在传达这样的意思——神能够在天堂里很好地利用这些人造的东西。但它们一旦与人类发生互动，地球就会陷入混乱和毁灭。”
Mayor说，这些神话强调了人类对创造人工生命的迷恋。
“People have an impulse to imagine things that aren’t possible yet,” Mayor says. “There is a timeless link between imagination and science.”
“人们总是愿意去想象那些还不可能的事情，” Mayor说。“想象力和科学之间有着永恒的联系。”
作者：Aaron Hertzmann，华盛顿大学计算机科学委任教授
本文由世界经济论坛与Futurity联合发表，转载请注明来源并附上原文链接。https://www.weforum.org/agenda/2019/03/greek-myths-have-some-scary-ideas-about-robots-and-a-i/
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