Mechanical Turk: The Fake AI That Fooled Crowds for Decades

A famous chess-playing machine was a con. It fooled a court and crowds for decades, and a hidden player sat inside the cabinet.

Benjamin Franklin is among those it played; Napoleon is legend.

Watch the short story: Mechanical Turk: The Fake AI That Fooled Crowds for Decades on Aha Lantern.

Sources: BBC, "A Point of View" (2013); Heinz Nixdorf MuseumsForum, Kempelen's chess Turk.

More stories: Caesar Cipher: The 2,000-Year-Old Trick · The Zodiac 340 Cipher: Solved After 51 Years · Antikythera Mechanism: Ancient Gears That Tracked the Sky

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