Ancient Greece was tech-obsessed, and they have a lot to tell us: A long-read Q&A with Adrienne Mayor
How did the ancient Greeks think about technology? Were they techno-optimists or pessimists? How do their myths – of Pandora, Odysseus, Talos, and Icarus – parallel to the technological possibilities that we’ve uncovered in the present? And what can we learn from these narratives? In this episode, I explore these questions and more with Dr. Adrienne Mayor, the author of Gods and Robots: Myths, Machines, and Ancient Dreams of Technology.
Adrienne Mayor is a folklorist and historian of ancient science who investigates natural knowledge contained in pre-scientific myths and oral traditions. She is the Berggruen Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, Stanford, and her research looks at ancient “folk science” precursors, alternatives, and parallels to modern scientific methods. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of our conversation. You can download the episode here, and don’t forget to subscribe to my podcast on iTunes or Stitcher. Tell your friends, leave a review.
Pethokoukis: My guest today is Adrienne Mayor, a research scholar in Classics and History of Science at Stanford University. She’s here today to discuss her latest book, God’s and Robots: Myths, Machines and the Ancient Dreams of Technology. Adrienne, welcome to the podcast.
Mayor: Thank you for having me.
Pethokoukis: I want to start by reading a few sentences from the book as a stage-setter:
“The mix of exuberance and anxiety aroused by a blurring of the lines between nature and machine might seem a uniquely modern response to the juggernaut of scientific progress in the age of technology, but the hope and trepidation surrounding the idea of artificial life surfaced thousands of years ago in the ancient Greek World. Imaginative myths expressed and struggled with the awe, dread, and hope summoned by the creation of animated statues, attempts to surpass human limits, and the pursuit of immortality. This is a discussion – one might say – that the ancient Greeks began.”
So my first question is, how did this discussion begin? I understand how stories about thunder gods or sun gods or sea gods might begin. It seems very obvious; they’re keying off nature. But myths about robots — where did that come from?
Mayor: That’s a really good question. Of course, all we can do is speculate according to the stories that have actually survived for 2,700 years since the time of Homer. For my book, I asked, “Who first imagined robots, automatons, human enhancements, and even ancient versions of AI?” Historians of science traced the first working automatons to the Middle Ages, but I wondered if it was possible that the concepts of self-driving devices, automatons, and other kinds of artificial life could be imagined long before the technology made them possible. I did find that as early as the time of Homer.
Now, we’re talking about Homer and Hesiod writing down oral traditions that existed before they began writing, which was between about 750 and 650 BC. So we’re talking about more than 2700 years ago in the ancient Greek myths, people were already envisioning how one would maybe imitate, augment, and even surpass nature through something that the Greeks might call biotechne, “life through craft.” I think those myths about automatons and animated devices allowed people in ancient times to let their imaginations soar by describing the marvels that the god of invention, Hephaestus, or the craftsman Daedalus – the guy who made the wings for himself and his son – made. They would let their imaginations picture how these gods could use the same familiar materials, tools, and implements that an ordinary blacksmith or artisan would be using on Earth in that time, but with astounding results because they’re gods.
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