George Meliese's silent films and automatons were at the core of the beautifully illustrated and written YA novel from the mid-2000s named The Invention of Hugo Cabret [0].
I worked on a massive audio (78s) digitization project for the LOC and it was a blast to see the process of how these archivists and their outsourced crews (like us) worked to maintain the human arts. It was an odd feeling, I never had a client prior to that make me feel like our work was so important.
It reminds me of a story I was told about a certain vault in Hollywood that contained hundreds of priceless films that were destroyed in a fire...but they locked up the vault and pretended everything was fine. And to this day...
I don't really understand this article. It seems to centre around the quote "probably the first instance of a robot ever captured in a moving image" when it is quite clearly an actor not a machine.
Nowhere does the article refer to something like "depiction of a robot", no it explicitly talks about robots captured on film. This is not that.
It's definitely a cool glimpse into early filmmaking, but it's not a robot.
No, it's a mannequin that comes to life. Trying to retcon it into being a killer robot is like the pyramidiots who find images of spaceships in Egyptian temple wall paintings.
As usual, science fiction is a cautionary tale of the future. The more effort we put into robots the bigger and stronger they get. Sooner or later one of them will hurt a human, and then what do we do? You can’t hold a robot accountable.
Well, where are we now? If that robot is a driverless car, it can pretty much run over humans with impunity. The owner and manufacturer of the car will suffer minor penalties (compared with the victim being dead or maimed). They will not be required to change their actions. The robots will continue to be allowed to harm people in public.
Personally, I liked it better when we told ourselves stories about breaking the damn things as soon as they hurt someone.
Thank you, I do, many thanks for the link. It is at that point exactly that we should have stopped and taken better stock of our situation. The companies involved drug the case through courts for a decade and paid a pittance. We decided years ago that companies are allowed to purchase a license for robots to kill humans. It’s gross.
Industrial robots have killed a whole lot of people. Automation without intelligence means that robots which mindlessly repeat tasks got built, resulting in people getting crushed when they're in the way of moving arms and apparatus.
Ironically, adding intelligence will probably result in robots that are far safer and kill fewer people.
Robots don’t keep humans safe. Humans keep humans safe. An industrial machine stays put in its context and humans can be trained to work around it, and at least notionally consent to be in its presence. A roaming machine means every human nearby needs to be constantly vigilant, and none of us may revoke consent.
In the second case, machine intelligence is supposed to keep us safe. That intelligence is controlled by people or companies that may or may not have the public benefit as motive for their actions. The typical response to that is to legislate, or publicly advocate for change. But what if the entity that controls the robots also controls the laws? That means there’s no way for regular people to revoke consent to the presence of dangerous robots.
So, cleanly, what if the CEO of a self-driving car company donates money to a government that provides it immunity from the actions of its robots? Who do we trust in that case?
I still prefer a world where we solve the robot problem early, with clubs and fire.
The actual title of the short uses the word "automate", French for "automaton"; I suspect NPR simply used the more familiar word in their headline for clarity.
Well, the Library of Congress entry notes him as "Gugusse the clown" and the Wikipedia entry[2] has a few citations (to books, I can't verify) that support it, but more to the point, "Pierrot" is a classic[3] stock character in e.g. commedia dell'arte. It says clown but I think our modern meaning of that word is a bit removed, and perhaps "harlequin" (another character[4]) is more what we'd say these days.
> Why does NPR call Gugusse "a human clown" ? He is not wearing clown clothes.
Strange of you to criticize NPR for that bit seeing as they didn't come up with that description for Gugusse. From the LoC page for the video:
>> Gugusse the clown appears to control the actions of Pierrot Automate, a child-sized automaton standing on a pedestal. By turning a crank, Gugusse makes him march and wave a stick. As Gugusse turns the crank, the automaton gets bigger until it is the size of a grown man. Suddenly the automaton is controlling his own limbs. He hits Gugusse on the head with his stick. Gugusse pulls the automaton off the pedestal and picks up a large hammer. As Gugusse pounds the automaton on the head, he gets smaller and smaller. At the final stroke of the hammer, he disappears.
So they're using the supplied description of Gugusse. If you have an issue with it, take it up with the Library of Congress.
*His character in contemporary popular culture—in poetry, fiction, and the visual arts, as well as works for the stage, screen, and concert hall—is that of the sad clown [...]*
The jacket just looks like a variant of “morning dress”. It’s the equivalent of a tuxedo for the daytime (wearing either at the wrong time of day used to be considered incorrect; see the selectively-sartorially-fastidious Jack in 30 Rock reacting to Liz’s surprise at his wearing a dinner jacket without some special event planned with, “it’s after 6:00, Liz, what am I, a farmer?”)
You still occasionally see them at state functions (Trump wore an infamously poor-looking one when visiting Queen Elizabeth in his first term, iirc, and you can find photos of people like Reagan in it looking a bit less uncomfortable). I think they were standard/required clothing for arguing in front of the Supreme Court through the 1970s or something.
It’s the kind of jacket one might imagine a stereotypical cartoon mayor of a town wearing for a daytime ribbon cutting… because, not that long ago, that’s exactly what they would have worn.
It’s an almost, but not quite, dead piece of clothing, but it was still quite familiar when this was made.
Oh boy, this takes me down memory lane.
George Meliese's silent films and automatons were at the core of the beautifully illustrated and written YA novel from the mid-2000s named The Invention of Hugo Cabret [0].
[0] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Invention_of_Hugo_Cabret
I worked on a massive audio (78s) digitization project for the LOC and it was a blast to see the process of how these archivists and their outsourced crews (like us) worked to maintain the human arts. It was an odd feeling, I never had a client prior to that make me feel like our work was so important.
Have you seen 'Film Is Dead. Long Live Film!’ (2024)?
Going on the list! Thanks!
It reminds me of a story I was told about a certain vault in Hollywood that contained hundreds of priceless films that were destroyed in a fire...but they locked up the vault and pretended everything was fine. And to this day...
I don't really understand this article. It seems to centre around the quote "probably the first instance of a robot ever captured in a moving image" when it is quite clearly an actor not a machine.
Nowhere does the article refer to something like "depiction of a robot", no it explicitly talks about robots captured on film. This is not that.
It's definitely a cool glimpse into early filmmaking, but it's not a robot.
No, it's a mannequin that comes to life. Trying to retcon it into being a killer robot is like the pyramidiots who find images of spaceships in Egyptian temple wall paintings.
As usual, science fiction is a cautionary tale of the future. The more effort we put into robots the bigger and stronger they get. Sooner or later one of them will hurt a human, and then what do we do? You can’t hold a robot accountable.
Well, where are we now? If that robot is a driverless car, it can pretty much run over humans with impunity. The owner and manufacturer of the car will suffer minor penalties (compared with the victim being dead or maimed). They will not be required to change their actions. The robots will continue to be allowed to harm people in public.
Personally, I liked it better when we told ourselves stories about breaking the damn things as soon as they hurt someone.
>Sooner or later one of them will hurt a human, and then what do we do?
Considering this took place before I was born, you might not be aware of the multiple times it's already occurred.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Williams_(robot_fatalit...
Thank you, I do, many thanks for the link. It is at that point exactly that we should have stopped and taken better stock of our situation. The companies involved drug the case through courts for a decade and paid a pittance. We decided years ago that companies are allowed to purchase a license for robots to kill humans. It’s gross.
Industrial robots have killed a whole lot of people. Automation without intelligence means that robots which mindlessly repeat tasks got built, resulting in people getting crushed when they're in the way of moving arms and apparatus.
Ironically, adding intelligence will probably result in robots that are far safer and kill fewer people.
Robots don’t keep humans safe. Humans keep humans safe. An industrial machine stays put in its context and humans can be trained to work around it, and at least notionally consent to be in its presence. A roaming machine means every human nearby needs to be constantly vigilant, and none of us may revoke consent.
In the second case, machine intelligence is supposed to keep us safe. That intelligence is controlled by people or companies that may or may not have the public benefit as motive for their actions. The typical response to that is to legislate, or publicly advocate for change. But what if the entity that controls the robots also controls the laws? That means there’s no way for regular people to revoke consent to the presence of dangerous robots.
So, cleanly, what if the CEO of a self-driving car company donates money to a government that provides it immunity from the actions of its robots? Who do we trust in that case?
I still prefer a world where we solve the robot problem early, with clubs and fire.
Well, to be pedantic, if it's 19th century it would have to be an automaton. The word robot wasn't coined until 1923.
From the article
> (The word "robot" didn't appear until 1921, when Czech dramatist Karel Čapek coined it in his science fiction play R.U.R..)
The actual title of the short uses the word "automate", French for "automaton"; I suspect NPR simply used the more familiar word in their headline for clarity.
You didn't read the link, did you? This is addressed in the article.
The embedded video is unwatchable, for some reason, so here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojqcjzzjN2Q
"[...] attacks a human clown with a stick."
Why does NPR call Gugusse "a human clown" ? He is not wearing clown clothes.
Gugusse looks more to me like the "mad inventor" of the robot, with a comedic bald head.
Well, the Library of Congress entry notes him as "Gugusse the clown" and the Wikipedia entry[2] has a few citations (to books, I can't verify) that support it, but more to the point, "Pierrot" is a classic[3] stock character in e.g. commedia dell'arte. It says clown but I think our modern meaning of that word is a bit removed, and perhaps "harlequin" (another character[4]) is more what we'd say these days.
1: <https://www.loc.gov/item/2026125501/?loclr=blogloc>
2: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gugusse_and_the_Automaton>
3: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrot>
4: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harlequin>
> Why does NPR call Gugusse "a human clown" ? He is not wearing clown clothes.
Strange of you to criticize NPR for that bit seeing as they didn't come up with that description for Gugusse. From the LoC page for the video:
>> Gugusse the clown appears to control the actions of Pierrot Automate, a child-sized automaton standing on a pedestal. By turning a crank, Gugusse makes him march and wave a stick. As Gugusse turns the crank, the automaton gets bigger until it is the size of a grown man. Suddenly the automaton is controlling his own limbs. He hits Gugusse on the head with his stick. Gugusse pulls the automaton off the pedestal and picks up a large hammer. As Gugusse pounds the automaton on the head, he gets smaller and smaller. At the final stroke of the hammer, he disappears.
So they're using the supplied description of Gugusse. If you have an issue with it, take it up with the Library of Congress.
> Strange of you to criticize NPR for that bit seeing as they didn't come up with that description for Gugusse
Strange of you to defend a news site for reporting incorrect information.
> If you have an issue with it, take it up with the Library of Congress.
When a news site reports incorrect information, we take it up with the news site because it is LITERALLY THEIR JOB to check their sources.
The automaton in the film is a "Pierrot" style of clown:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierrot
From the Wikipedia entry...
*His character in contemporary popular culture—in poetry, fiction, and the visual arts, as well as works for the stage, screen, and concert hall—is that of the sad clown [...]*
A modern "Pierrot" style clown is:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Puddles_Pity_Party
I have to admit... I wouldn't know about the Pierrot style of clown if it wasn't for Puddles...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cf1w5GUturU
The comment is not about the automaton, as a more careful reading of it will make clear.
Fair enough.
Agreed 100%. That's a mad scientist. I'll bet the coat with exaggerated tails was comically out of fashion as well.
The jacket just looks like a variant of “morning dress”. It’s the equivalent of a tuxedo for the daytime (wearing either at the wrong time of day used to be considered incorrect; see the selectively-sartorially-fastidious Jack in 30 Rock reacting to Liz’s surprise at his wearing a dinner jacket without some special event planned with, “it’s after 6:00, Liz, what am I, a farmer?”)
You still occasionally see them at state functions (Trump wore an infamously poor-looking one when visiting Queen Elizabeth in his first term, iirc, and you can find photos of people like Reagan in it looking a bit less uncomfortable). I think they were standard/required clothing for arguing in front of the Supreme Court through the 1970s or something.
It’s the kind of jacket one might imagine a stereotypical cartoon mayor of a town wearing for a daytime ribbon cutting… because, not that long ago, that’s exactly what they would have worn.
It’s an almost, but not quite, dead piece of clothing, but it was still quite familiar when this was made.
the llm editing the llm writing it missed it?
That outfit was typical of clowns in 1890, and often used in the opera Pagliacci about a clown.
[0] <http://1890swriters.blogspot.com/2015/10/victorian-clowns-an...>
[1] <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pagliacci>
The image you link to shows clothing in the style of what the automaton is wearing, not Gugusse. He's the man to the left of the box in the NPR image.