The Writing Boy Automaton (1774)

Who would have thought that a Swiss watchmaker can create a human automaton that works like a modern robot during a time where modern ...

Who would have thought that a Swiss watchmaker can create a human automaton that works like a modern robot during a time where modern programmable computers and electronics don't exist yet. During the late 1770s, Pierre Jaquet-Droz built his 70-centimeter tall automaton called "The Writer" that is impossibly ahead of its time. In fact, he was even afraid to be arrested for sorcery after he presented it to the royal courts of Europe.

What makes it even more remarkable is that its complex self-moving actions are over 250 years old and simulating human actions without electricity and complex programming language in a carved wooden body is extraordinary.

It may have been the first modern printer with true artificial intelligence as this human automaton has written thousands of notes through a goose quill pen that he dips in an ink well, shakes his hand slightly to avoid spots of ink on paper, before demonstrating his fluid and elegant penmanship as his eyes follow the text. It sits at a Louis XV mahogany desk, wearing an elegant period clothing which disguise a hidden door to his back that reveals a 6,000-piece mechanism, computing his ability to trace the letters of the alphabet.

The complex system has 40 rotating cams that works like a read-only memory in modern computers. It is essential to have that mechanism so that the automaton can write words letter by letter over four lines. Inside the doll, the wheel that controls the cams is like a programmed system disk made up of letters that can be removed, replaced and re-ordered so that it can make new words and sentences. Basically, it is manually reprogramming the automaton.

During this time, it was the so-called 'golden age of automata' and royal families throughout Europe were entertained by various automatons that do specific 'human' tasks. Unlike other similar automata, the Writer is more complex and the mechanism is placed inside the body and not on an external piece of furniture. It's even remarkable that Jaquet-Droz managed to miniaturize the mechanical wheels in a very limited space while still synchronizing the complex movements of the automaton.

Aside from the Writer, Jaquet-Droz constructed two other highly complex models (the Draftsman and the Lady Musician) from 1767 to 1774. He set up his first watchmaking workshop at a Swiss farm and later moved to Paris, where clockwork automata was in high demand and small family ateliers thrived. By 1758, he presented his earlier works to the King of Spain at his court, where he demonstrated a clock with a shepherd playing on a flute and a dog guarding a basket of apples. When the King was challenged to take one of the apples, the dog threw himself on his hand, barking so naturally, that a hound present in the room barked back. The spooked courtiers left the room and even accused Jacquet-Droz of witchcraft.

He continued the demonstration despite the incident with the presence of the King and his minister. The minister tried to ask his shepherd automaton for the time in Spanish but no response in return but when the King asked it in French, the shepherd replied with the time immediately. He has to explain the inner mechanisms of his device to prove that the mechanism move naturally out of fear from the Grand Inquisitor. His "Shepherd’s Clock" remains on display in one of the Spanish king's palace museums. 

Fresh from his successful venture in Spain, he established a profitable company where started work on his most sophisticated automatons the world would ever see.

The Draftsman was his first automaton that was slightly simpler as it was made of only 2,000 pieces. Instead of writing letters, the automaton uses a pencil to draw four different portraits: one of King Louis XV of France, a drawing of a dog with the inscription, a Cupid in a chariot pulled by a butterfly, and a portrait of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI. It has a small device with an air bag concealed in the head that works like fireplace bellows thereby allowing it to blow the dust off the paper. It can also raise its hands to examine his work with admiration or to correct a mistake.

The third one is the Lady Musician that plays organ with music created by the automaton itself based on a mechanical programming that presses the keys of an actual organ. Her torso and eyes replicate the the human movement of a real organ player. All three automatons are housed at the Museum of Art and History of Neuchâtel, where they remain in virtually the same working condition as when they were first made.

After the Jaquet-Droz company peaked in 1788 and was liquidated, remaining dormant for over 200 years until it was acquired by the Swatch Group in 2000. Rather than forgetting its roots, the company was returned to its origins and set up in Jaquet-Droz's hometown and moved into its new Atelier in 2010.