A Brief, Incomplete, and Mostly Wrong History of Robotics

A mechanical knight that sits up, moves its head, and waves its arm may sound like a modern marvel, but Leonardo da Vinci sketched plans for just such a device back in 1495. Despite lacking a working prototype, the Renaissance master secured the 15th-century equivalent of $500 million in seed funding—a feat not matched until Figure AI's launch five centuries later.

This quirky invention marks an early milestone in the colorful history of robotics. From the chess-playing Mechanical Turk of 1770 (which secretly housed a human operator) to the cigarette-smoking Elektro unveiled at the 1939 World's Fair, attempts to create artificial beings have long captured our imagination.

The term "robot" itself didn't exist until 1920, coined by playwright Karel Čapek in a story about mechanical laborers rebelling against their human masters. Despite this ominous origin, enthusiasm for robots has only grown over the decades, fueling waves of innovation, hype, and the occasional "AI winter" of diminished expectations.