the robot and the witch 11
being made and displayed in Alexandria, Egypt, a lively center for en-
gineering innovations. A native of Alexandria, Apollodorus served as
head of the great library there (P. Oxy. 12.41). Apollodorus’s descriptions
of the automaton Talos (and a drone- like eagle, chapter 6) suggest his
familiarity with Alexandria’s famous automated statues and mechanical
devices (chapter 9).
In older versions of the Talos story, technology and psychology are even
more prominent— and ambiguous. Does his metallurgic origin make
Talos completely inhuman? Notably, the question of whether Talos has
agency or feelings is never fully resolved in the myths. Even though he
was “made, not born,” Talos seems somehow tragically human, even
heroic, cut down by a ruse while carrying out his assigned duties. In the
other, more complex descriptions of his downfall, Medea subdues the
bronze giant with her spellbinding pharmaka, then uses her powers of
suggestion, compelling Talos to hallucinate a nightmare vision of his own
violent death. Next, Medea plays on the automaton’s “emotions.” In these
versions, Talos is portrayed as susceptible to human fears and hopes, with
a kind of volition and intelligence. Medea convinces Talos that she can
make him immortal— but only by removing the bronze rivet in his ankle.
Talos agrees. When this essential seal on his ankle is dislodged, the ichor
flows out like molten lead, and his “life” ebbs away.
For readers today, the robot’s slow demise might call to mind the
iconic scene in Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). As the
doomed computer HAL’s memory banks fade and blink out, HAL be-
gins to recite the story of his “birth.” But HAL was made, not born, and
his “birth” is a fiction implanted by his manufacturers, much as eidetic,
emotional memories are manufactured and implanted in the replicants
in the Blade Runner films (1982, 2017). Recent studies in human- robot
interactions show that people tend to anthropomorphize robots and
Artificial Intelligence if the entities “act like” humans and have a name
and a personal “story.” Robots are not sentient, and have no subjective
feelings, yet we endow self- moving objects that mimic human behavior
with emotions and the ability to suffer, and we feel pangs of empathy
for them when they are damaged or destroyed. In the film Jason and