| Originally, the challenge was to design an automaton that could walk unassisted. |
| Mathematician Alan M. Turing was one of the first to propose the idea of a finite automaton as a universal mathematics machine. |
| By no means, though, should you assume that he simply churns out tales like an automaton working from a template. |
| In the late 1700s, a performer-cum-scientist in the court of Maria Theresa displayed a wooden automaton seated at a gear-filled cabinet. |
| But for one man at least, the role of cheerless automaton seems to be palling. |
| It makes you an unthinking automaton, who will rapidly be shunned by society for your heartless or underwhelming response to everything. |
