More Robot History: The Great Enlightenment (Patreon)

During and after the Great War was a time of major steps forward in the development of robots.

After a tremendous production boom during the war, General Robotics President, Thomas Holt was no longer satisfied with the crude automatons that became the industry standard. Holt and his contemporaries were interested in machines that were capable of understanding commands and problem solving.

Holt was not the first to pursue the notion of artificial intelligence. German scientist, Rudolph Lorenz, was largely credited with creation of the first self aware robot. This robot was capable of limited conversational responses and had an understanding of basic logic, but this came at the cost of very limited mobility. This robot was nicknamed “Electronica” by the press. While more primitive than the robots of Emmy’s time, Electronica is considered one of the greatest achievements in robotics and the indicator of what is called “the Great Enlightenment”.