One of the earliest concepts of a
“mechanical man” dates back to a 1495 Leonardo da Vinci sketch. According to
his design, his mechanical knight was capable of humanistic movements. This was
an early proof that man has always been fascinated with robotics. Many other brilliant minds had many ideas
about artificial intelligence but due to the lack of technology then, these
ideas remained figments of imagination. The birth of science fiction
has given these ideas an avenue to which they became, in a way, real.
Pop culture has constantly tried
to imagine what life would be like with artificial intelligence. Droids, robots
or any other form of advanced artificial intelligence have always played a big
part in many works of science fiction and fantasy. It’s fascinating and kind of
eerie that these robots, according to their respective fictional sources, are basically
just a few jumps away from our current time. What was once fiction could become
a reality sooner than we expect.
It is a general certainty that robots
and machine intelligence will become a growing part of our lives over the next
years and decades and just as science fiction helped pave the way for space
travel, today it is busily preparing the way for the coming of the machines. In
fact, some of the robots we’ve seen in entertainment are already inspiring
modern technology and have made some scientific breakthroughs possible. Ushering
in a new decade could probably bring us more advancement in technology and the
true beginning of the artificial intelligence age.
This
quiz contains a list of the mechanical characters that have kept Pop Culture
fascinated with their ingeniousness and possibilities. The list, however, does
not include disembodied artificial intelligence. Only those with a form,
humanoid or otherwise, are found in the quiz. How many of these characters are
you familiar with?
