Traces the story of how ancient cultures envisioned artificial life, automata, self-moving devices and human enhancements, sharing insights into how the mythologies of the past related to and shaped ancient machine innovations.

“If you think robot ethics is only a modern problem, think again. As this fascinating book explains, robots have been envisioned—and feared—for thousands of years. Adrienne Mayor teleports us back to the ancient world, connecting the dots between mythology, ancient machines, and today’s robots and other emerging technologies—and helping us understand our visions and anxieties about automation and what it means to be human.”—Patrick Lin, coeditor of Robot Ethics 2.0: From Autonomous Cars to Artificial Intelligence “Vivid and exhilarating, Gods and Robots shows that humanity has been grappling with the idea of artificial life since the dawn of history, repeatedly running up against the same ethical conundrums. With uncanny timing, the book reveals how antiquity illuminates much of today’s debates about AI, human-machine collaboration, and transhumanism.”—George Zarkadakis, author of In Our Own Image: Savior or Destroyer? The History and Future of Artificial Intelligence“This brilliant and incomparable book will astonish readers by showing the real technologies that lie behind ancient mythology. Adrienne Mayor presents fascinating and entertaining stories for pondering the deep questions of artificial life. Gods and Robots is a beautiful book.”—M. Norton Wise, University of California, Los Angeles“Teeming with living statues, mechanical soldiers, divine beings, astonishing craftsmen, and canny sorceresses, God and Robots is an evocative account of the ancient Greeks’ fascination with artificial life—one that reveals many resonances between ancient thinking and current debates around robotics and AI.”—E. R. Truitt, author of Medieval Robots“Gods and Robots is a hugely enjoyable book. Adrienne Mayor tackles a fascinating area of ancient experience and imagination that has barely been explored hitherto, and she does so with originality and vigor.”—Armand D’Angour, University of Oxford“Beautifully written and elegantly argued, Gods and Robots reminds us that we are not the first to experience the uncanny awe that comes with the thought that our technology might produce something like nature. Equally attuned to real objects and mythic imagination, Adrienne Mayor offers surprising insights about both antiquity and our hopes and fears in the face of today’s efforts to make autonomous machines.”—Peter T. Struck, author of Divination and Human Nature: A Cognitive History of Intuition in Classical Antiquity“An eye-opening tour of humankind’s fascination with robots, androids, and automata from prehistory to now, Gods and Robots explores how our feelings about artificial life have always been intertwined with our feelings about humanity.”—A. E. Stallings, poet and translator of Hesiod’s Works and Days