The
first of three posts that offer some key moments and images in the
history of non-human humanoid entities: artificial intelligence,
androids, robots, cyborgs . . . We can discuss these as we begin to discuss Metropolis, but they're posted here now to encourage ideas for your "My Frankenstein" project.
The human body is a machine which winds its own springs. It is the living image of perpetual movement.
-Julien Offroy de La Mettrie (1709-1751), Man a Machine 
Jacques de Vaucanson (1709-1782)
Jacques de Vaucanson (1709-1782)
Vaucanson’s duck
When first presented to the Franklin Institute in Philadelphia in 1928, the automaton was of unknown origin. Once restored to working order, the automaton itself provided the answer when it penned the words "written by the automaton of Maillardet". – Wikipedia
Automotamania – For all Your Automaton-Restoration Needs Maintains great images and videos
The Turk – not an automaton but a hoax: a man hidden inside played chess 
Babbage’s
Difference Engine was not constructed during his lifetime but replicas
were later made. It's also the subject of a collaborative novel by the
cyberpunk pioneers William Gibson and Bruce Sterling. 
Ada Lovelace (1815-1852), “the first programmer” 
Alan
Turing (1912-1954), who proposed the “Turing test” for artificial
intelligence, and the man behind the Enigma machine, which is said to
have won World War II. 
Soon to be a major motion picture! Benedict Cumberbatch as Alan Turing.
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