Epic Eric

There is much talk and not a little bit of fear about Artificial Intelligence or AI and how it is expected to develop.

Stephen Hawkins very recently expressed his own reservations about the rise of the machines and not, in his opinion, too far detached from the Science Fiction, Fantasy and Movie depiction which often heralds the dominance of AI over mankind.

The Three Laws of Robotics as devised by Isaac Asimov have given good service in literary works but guess what?  they will have diddly squat to do with those intent on upscaling AI for malevolent or violent purposes.

In my childhood, in the era before micro-processors, software and even accessible computing the manifestation of AI was in clunky, awkward and ultimately flawed robots. My favourite joke was that Robots could only live in a bungalow, for example.

They were, for all of their lurching movement and radiophonic sounds, still pretty scary.

My earliest fearful images are of Gort from The Day the Earth Stood Still (1951) although countered a bit by the fickle Robbie the Robot in Lost in Space. More sinister were the weapon toting entities of Gunslinger in Westworld, Robocop and the cyborgs of Terminator movies.

Perhaps the first big screen image of a robot was in Fritz Lang's Metropolis in 1927 but with limitations in mechanics and technology and CGi but a dream very evident.

One of the world's first operational robots was named Eric and was originally built in Britain in 1928 by Captain W. H. Richards & A.H. Reffell.

The machine may have been inspired by the Lang creation for the screen only months prior as a matter of reasonable speculation but appeared less than a decade after the word 'robot' was first introduced to the English language in R.U.R., a 1920 play by Czech writer Karel Čapek.

R.U.R. stands for Rossumovi Univerzální Roboti (Rossum’s Universal Robots).

The letters were used by Richards and Reffell as the motif on the metallic barrel chest of Eric for his first public performance  on 20 September 1928, when he opened the Society of Model Engineers' annual exhibition 'with a really sparkling speech'.

The Society had originally invited the Duke of York to open the event but he declined, so Captain Richards decided as 'it is a mechanical show, let us have a mechanical man to open it' and started work on creating Eric.

The late 1920's was a period of renewed optimism in global economies and developments in science and manufacturing saw robots becoming part of popular culture.

Eric weighed just over 45 kg and had an 'armour-plated chest, legs and arms' made of Aluminium. Eric had light bulbs for eyes and 35,000 volts of electricity caused blue sparks to fly from his teeth.

Crowds were wowed by Eric and as he travelled the globe with his makers, leaving the UK, for the US and Europe he was feted by celebrities and the public. A New York newspaper called Eric the epitomy of perfect man.

There was a real appetite for and fascination with this cutting edge technology as it was perceived then.

However, as suddenly as  Eric stormed onto the scene he simply disappeared.

It is not known if he was lost, misplaced in transit,  destroyed or just recycled for spare parts? Robots are working objects and tend to get cannibalised for spare parts, lost, neglected, forgotten about, or deliberately scrapped.    

It was only through an intention by the Science Museum in London, England to put on an exhibition that the existence of Eric and his significance in the history of robotics came to light.

Surviving relatives of the inventors were traced and archived material including some working drawings and photographs were secured. Although Eric’s external appearance was relatively easy to establish from photographs taken during his lifetime and some of his movements can be seen in surviving film footage, reverse-engineering Eric's insides are likely to prove to be a far more difficult challenge.

The only image of Eric's insides is from an artist’s impression, which may (or may not) be accurate as Eric’s makers did not want to give too much away of their pioneering engineering. Although modern components will be used in the recreation of the insides of Eric, it will still be necessary for considerable experimentation to ensure that Eric moves like the original.

Robbie

GORT

The first stage for the Science Museum will be to build Eric’s internal metal frame which will support his aluminium skin and the electronics and motors which will allow him to move. Once the motors and wiring are added and tested, aluminium will be cut and applied to form Eric’s skin. Finally the frame and aluminium will be cleaned and the electronics and software which will control Eric's movements will be added and tested.

The museum has also rescued a number of relatively recent robots from sheds, basements and other forgotten places and will preserve them for the nation. Many of these robots will share the stage with Eric as they go on display in the scheduled  2017 Robots exhibition.

Technology has certainly come a long way in a relatively short period but is no less sobering and frightening for what it could be capable of if allowed to wrestle free of man's rationality and control.