Intelligent Artifice: Machine Learning From the Middle Ages to the Enlightenment

This introduction outlines the contributions of the four following essays on the subject of the long history of artificial intelligence. They address the longstanding links between artificial intelligence and deception, the liberatory potential that AI offers, and the way that humans have used automata and robots to test and assert the limits of humanity. Taken together, they reveal provocative and unexpected elements of continuity with contemporary discussions about artificial intelligence and machine learning.