Publish at November 26 2025 Updated November 26 2025
We're in a period between amazement and fear when it comes to robots and artificial intelligence. It has to be said that everything is changing with these new technologies. However, we shouldn't think that this anxiety is recent. In fact, it's been around since the Middle Ages.
Indeed, as this France Culture capsule reminds us, when Charlemagne received a water clock from the Caliph of Baghdad, in which each hour was punctuated by the appearance of mechanical horsemen, everyone at court took fright. What kind of witchcraft was this?
It has to be said that, since the third century, thinkers in the East had been imagining and manufacturing "automatic" water machines and other devices that would come close to the term "automaton" (which would appear hundreds of years later). In the West, these approaches created more unease, and even Arthurian literature picked up on the idea of mechanical knights threatening the lives of the heroes of the Round Table.
In short, it seems that our questions and fears about automation go back to the dawn of time.
Running time: 3min14
Image: ThankYouFantasyPictures from Pixabay
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