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Does ‘The Image of God’ Extend to Robots, Too?

Artist Giles Walker has rebuilt the 1928 robot, which has been on display at the Science Museum since October 20 2016

Inside a railway arch in Brixton, a piece of history was brought back to life. First built in 1928 by Captain Richards & A.H. Reffell, Eric is one of the 's first .  Eric's design was relatively simple. He was automated, but the interesting thing about Eric  is how much extra stuff people  read into him.  Ingenious electrical instruments enabled Eric to hear questions and answer in a human voice.

On September 28 1928 Eric stood up at the Royal Horticultural Hall, bowed, looked right and left and moved his hands as he proceeded to give an opening address as sparks flashed from his teeth.

The Press described Eric  as the “perfect man,“ built less than a decade after the word robot was used for the first time, Eric toured  the world with his makers but then vanished, seemingly forever.

Nobody knows if was thrown out, or lost, but it's apparent that Eric once lauded for his  technical prowess became an early victim of technological obsolescence. He may  have  no longer been needed or wanted even though he may have  still been in working order.

In May , over 800 Kickstarters  investors campaigned to bring Eric back to life. Roboticist and artist Giles Walker created a replica of Eric using just a handful of archived news cuttings, pictures, and .  The robot is built with the same finesse as modern robots but purposefully lacks their capabilities.  Eric is controlled by a pre-programmed sequence, using software similar to that used for controlling lights in theatres.

By resurrecting Eric, Russell and Walker want to make people reevaluate the place of robots within our history and society at large.

Commissioned by the Science Museum and funded through a successful £51,000 Kickstarter , Eric is on display at the South Kensington museum ahead of a Robots exhibition in 2017 and will thereafter tour the world just like he did more than 90 years ago.

The new exhibition will feature more than 100 robots, from a 16th-century mechanical monk to robots from science fiction and modern-day research labs.

In whose are robots made?

According  to Russell, Curator, London Science Museum the answer seems to be “ourselves.”

Robots are almost like mirrors, they reflect back on ourselves, tell us who we are  Ben Russell, Curator, London Science Museum

As research into artificial intelligence continues, we will continue on the path of making artificial intelligence (AI) in our image. But can provide an alternative approach to how robots are made?

The original Eric is a product of a time when an intelligent robot was still a far-off possibility. At the time, filmmakers and audiences treated these robots instrumentally; there was little sympathy for the robot dead.

Times, however, have changed. Christopher Orr, in The Atlantic, notes that there is a major philosophical shift in the newest version of Westworld: A shift from concern for the creators, made of flesh and blood, to concern for the created, made of steel and silicon.

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