Dreams of a Gastro Automaton

is the mother of our invention? And then um Joett also applied a more direct translation, which maybe quote our need will be the real creator. Oh so this is the origin of that phrase, necessity is the mother of invention exactly, which it sometimes is. But as we've discussed plenty of times on the show before, there are a lot of mothers of invention, and many of them are

not quite necessity. Yeah. A lot of the show, as we discussed on the show, our devices and concepts that attempt to solve basic problems and the lives of the humans that created them. I think that is a very common thing to encounter. Uh and uh. But the same cannot be said for today's invention. Not exactly, because today we're discussing humanities centuries spanning quest to create a robot that eats and poops. And I would say it's not so much as a need as it is a want,

you know. Um, But it is interesting when you start breaking it down, like, why if we didn't need, if there wasn't a definite need, say in the ancient world or or even in recent centuries, to have a robot that could eat a sandwich and then produce that sandwich to poop, then why did we seemingly want it? And and I and I and I do say that, you know,

we did seemingly wanted. Individuals worked at this problem to varying degrees, either you know, dreaming it up, creating machines that at least produced the uh, you know the effects of this process, and then later on even you know, in recent years, have reached the point where we actually have machines capable of carrying this out, which we'll get

to towards the end of the episode. Yeah, but one thing to think about is that a machine that poops, say, a pooping robot, is not just something that's for laughs. It actually does play, say, an intellectually serious role in history, and it engages with ideas that people have been pushing back and forth on for hundreds of years. And I'd say chiefly one of those ideas is the question of

what makes something alive? And we'll revisit that throughout the episode. Yeah, because you know, ultimately it comes down to this this very old quest, you know, this very old question. Can the inventor and when there with their secular ingenuity, can they rival the work of the gods? Can they create a machine that moves like a human being, that thinks like a human being, or even eats and oops like

a human being. And this is there in some of the older myths about crafts people and inventors, like you know, the myth of Dadalus. One of the stories told about Dadalus. I think this also appears in a in a dialogue written by Plato, is the idea that Dadalus created these statues and because he was such a good craftsman, and because they were so like lifelike, they came to life.

There is embedded in that almost like an idea that, you know, be careful because if you make a representation of a living form that's close enough to the real thing, it will actually just spontaneously come alive and walk out of your workshop, all right, And I mean in in a non literal way like that, that is true, Like the artificiality of the things we create and the likeness of human being can be can be very powerful, continues to be even more powerful given our abilities with the

you know, say, digital media, we can create something that seems human and then if we believe in it enough, it almost makes it real. Yeah. Absolutely, I mean, so it's one thing to create a work of art. I mean I think that's ultimately. Even though deadalust is in some ways considered to be like an inventor with the wings and stuff. Uh, the statues that he created, I think are generally thought of as works of art. Right.

The idea was that they were so artistically adept, that they were so realistic in their depiction of the human form, there was danger of them coming alive and walking away. But there are also myths of actual like machines that that mimic human or lifelike forms in some way. Yeah, ultimately, way too many for us to to share on the show today, but just a few examples that that come

to mind. There's, of course, Alberta's Magnus Um, you know, who lived nine through twelve eighty um, who was also known as a doctor Universalis and doctor expertus uh and and later he was made a saint. But he was said to have an android to have this again, this thing that you know deta else are kind of vague, but it sounds like something in the likeness of a human that had some sort of mechanism to its movement that that allowed it to lean into this lifelike nature.

You know. I think we can safely dismiss the idea that he had a walking, talking robot in his in his laboratory or at the end that was created via technology or magic, because there are a lot of stories

about Magnus. But I would say it's not impossible that some of these more ancient figures or even medieval figures, had had some kind of automata that had limited functionality, in that they might have had internal gears and clockwork mechanisms that by you know, turning a crank or by operating bellows or somehow putting energy into the system would allow it to enact movements through the you know, the

robotic articulation kind of things. That could be somewhat life like, probably wouldn't be walking around talking, but might you know, you might have an automaton in the ancient world that has gears inside that allow it to move its arms and stuff. Right, we we did a whole episode of stuff to bling your mind on Talos, the mythical automaton.

It would stalk the shores and throw boulders at robots created by Harvestus that would throw boulders at ships, um and and certainly this creature never this thing never walked the earth, but you can imagine where it might. It was either inspired by some of the manufacturing techniques that were employed to create similar statues, or it was based in some way on you know, mild automatons that were demonstrated by proficient individuals. And there were some strikingly proficient

machines in the ancient world. I mean, we can't lose sight of that. Like the anti Cithero mechanism is an astronomical calculator. It's essentially a an analog computer that is made by different sized gears that fit together. That was from you know, I think it was the second or third century BC or something like that. Uh, that is discovered in a shipwreck in the Mediterranean. This was, you know, a really complex clockwork mechanism that calculated the positions of

objects in the sky. And if the ancients could build stuff like that, it's not at all inconceivable that they could build basic automata in human like forms that could you know, move their body parts and stuff. A couple of other examples of of older tales of such creations. King Solomon is said in some accounts to have had had a throne with mechanical animals on it. Oh, is that where the Marilyn Manson title comes from? What dope throne?

No dope throw and that's electrical straight, no mechanical animals. Isn't that a? Oh? Yeah, I guess it is? Sorry getting my my albums confused their um In either case, I don't think either band actually had a at a throne on par with King Solomon's. Uh, there's another there's actually um an individual by the name of Zoe Muwang fifth centuries of dynasty ruler who is said to have had a mechanical engineer. And I've also read similar stories

of Luban from the same time period. Luban, of course, would also also deified as a know, a god of of engineering, carpentry, etcetera. But in a lot of these affect these older accounts, you know, myth mingles with history, Um, A great deal becomes obviously exaggerated. Um. And Albertus Magnus, for all his interests, was not an actual magician. And it seems an essential truth that throughout human history, engineers, inventors, artists,

and technicians have experimented with automata. You know, we're driven to reproduce images of the human form, and then we take it a step beyond an attempt to bring them to life. And this is of course part and parcelto to one of humanity's oldest storytelling mediums, puppetry. Oh yeah, I mean I hadn't thought about it like that. But a puppet, in a way is an extremely crude automaton. It is a figure that is powered by some kind

of external force applied. It removed through the strings or whatever, through wires, or even just directly with the human hands. Uh. You know, and sometimes there's not even this removal. But but we were bringing life to the inanimate and making the inanimate animate. Uh. And and this goes back you know,

at least four thousand years through human history. But it's impossible really to say when puppetry really began, because ultimately any piece of witter stone transformed into into the likeness of a human or an animal could be quote unquote brought to life through minor or even crude puppetry. Yeah, and I guess in some ways, it's like the advancement

of the of the automaton. How advanced we think it is and how we react to it is based on how well hidden the deliveries of the power operations of its body parts are, right, like how well hidden the mechanisms are, and how much it just looks like it op rates on its own force from the inside. Right. But but yes, and no, though right, because um, from as far as puppetry is concerned, puppetry can still be

very convincing when you have very visible puppeteers. I mean, it's still a style that's employed uh today, and you can still um, you know, part of it is the suspension of disbelief. But the puppetry, the puppet puppet can still become real. But yeah, to whatever degree you hide that, to whatever degree, then it becomes uh seemingly or even purely mechanical with the humans standing off to the side. You know, that can only you know, enhance the effect.

But but just in terms of of picking up a likeness of a being or a creature and then moving it and making it seem like it's alive, I mean you can. You can look at some of the oldest evidence we have of such likenesses, such as the venus of Whole Fells from what four between forty thousand and thirty five thousand years ago. Oh, there's evidence that this was a puppet. No, no, there's no evidence that I've

seen it was a puppet. It's it's like if you have something like this, so you have something like the likeness of the lion man that we discussed loan loan mention from stuff to blow your mind. It's it's one. It really makes me think to imagine people picking this up and brandishing it for the first time, and you know, really and and and this combination of forms making their minds work and summoning new ideas about what's what's possible

and and how it relates to the human condition. But then all one has to do then is to to move the lion man around a little bit. Well, yeah, and it comes to life in some level, and then how does that change the message? Yeah, yeah, So you can think about the different um levels of animation and articulation within representational art throughout history. So first you might have had cave paintings that are fixed on a wall

and don't move. And then you might have had something like the Venus or like the Lowan Menh which is a standalone gurine that you could meet's stiff and ridge it on its own, but you can move it around with your hand like kids do with their toys, you know, they act out little scenes. And then beyond that you can have articulated figurines with independently moving body parts. Of course,

that's like the next step. And then the thing beyond that, of course, would be to make those body parts move at a distance or with some kind of hidden power

without you having to pose them with your fingers. Absolutely, So we could go on for quite some time talking about like the history of creating these likenesses and do varying degrees that we bring them to life, sometimes with things that don't even physically interact with them in a traditional sense, such as lighting effects, the effects of candle or firelight on on statues and whatnot. But ultimately we

want to fast forward a bit. We want to go all the way up into the eighteenth century, eighteenth century Europe. We want to talk about the work of Jacques devoca Saw. Yes, I think we should take a quick break and then when we come back we can dive further in. Alright, we're back, and uh, you know, I hope you stuck with us, because now we're going to get into the story of the Defecating Duck. Right, So this is the work of Jacques Devocasson, who was a French automaton maker

who lives seventeen o nine to seventeen eighty two. And Robert we both read an excellent essay about Vocasson and some some of his contemporaries called the Defecating Duck or the Ambiguous Origin Origins of Artificial Life, and this was published in Critical Inquiry in two thousand three, written by Jessica Riskin, who is a professor of history at Stanford and she's written extensively about the historical scientific debate about what makes something alive, including in a book called The

Restless Clock, which I was reading about and reading some passages, from which is University of Chicago, Press, sixteen. But for Riskin, Vocason is a so as a maker of automata, he plays an important role in the history of this debate about what it is that makes living things special, what

makes something alive? And this historical conflict has been between people who on one side thought living things were sort of passive machines that were designed to work a certain way and could be understood by their movements pretty much entirely except for the fact that they had been you know, they might have like a divine spark or an animating life essence. Uh, and that this uh, this point of view is typified by Descartes, right, who famously thought that

animals were machines. Yeah. If you're approaching everything from a very biomechanical standpoint like this, then uh, it seems completely possible to reverse engineer uh, the animal, Yeah, exactly. And then on the other hand, you've got people like Leibnitz who thought that animals were what Leibnitz called organisms the you know, that was a word of his coinage, meaning self organizing, self changing machines. So we might still think of them in term of machinery, but having all of

these these self actualizing potentials and irreducible parts. And so the one interesting thing that risk And points out is that the idea of living things as clockwork machines was actually considered relatively acceptable theologically at the time. And say, you know, uh, eighteenth century Christian Europe. It's sort of fit with the idea somewhat in vogue at the time of God as an ultimate watchmaker who fashioned an exquisite

clockwork universe by ingenious design and set it going. Oh yeah, once again, using like technology being the metaphor we use to then reinterpret our our myths and our legends and our religions. Yeah. But Jacques de vocus On, so he's he's in this world, right, Yeah, yeah, So focus On lived in a time of clockwork wonders and rapidly advancing technology.

He was the tenth son of a glove maker, and so you know, as one might expect, he grew up poor but around a lot of gloves, lot of gloves, and he's tenth in line to you know, to work the shop. But he dreamt of becoming a clockmaker, and he was fortunate enough to study under the Jesuits and coupled his clockwork ambitions with these new mysteries that came into his life, the mysteries of religion and this evolving understanding of health and human anatomy that is inevitably based

in this kind of biomechanical vision of what life is. Okay, so he's got some knowledge of like clockwork and gears and how you know, all these different little parts can fit together to move things at a distance and channel power in different directions. Right, So he ends up creating a number of different automata and uh, and he comes to excel in the creation of what we're known at the time as philosophical toys. These were amusements, you know,

mechanical clockwork amusements. They were also supposed to make you think, like the Billy bigmouth bass. Well, it sings, but it also makes you think, well, like what if a fish could sing? I'm not sure what a really good example I guess this should he take me to the river. Don't even know if we have purely philosophical toys anymore. Perhaps some more toy collectors out there listening can can chime in. But I mean the idea is that this would be a device that was brought out and demonstrated. Uh,

you would even pay to see it. You know, you would go to see this Mechanici's philosophical toy in action, and you would marvel at what seemed was possible with the technology. And then ideally this would lead to a great deal of thought and introspection on what it is telling you about the natural world, about the human condition, etcetera. Really,

in a way, it's like in a pre motion picture age. Uh, you know, what what kind of of mechanical object could convey all the feelings you end up feeling from stay watching Blade Runner. I do think there's some things kind

of like philosophical toys today. I think of machines. I can't remember where I saw this, but you know, there's like the the type of toy that is a an electronic machine that has an it's a box with an open button in a close button, and if you press the open button, it opens and a little hand comes out of the box and presses the clothes button and goes back inside and it closes up. It just kind of a philosophical toy. It's like it's amusing for a moment,

but it also maybe asks you. Maybe it causes you to ask questions about like what what is the role of a machine? Does this? Does this machine do something? Yeah, And there are also various like certainly not mechanical objects, but various like puzzle box scenarios that because I want to think, I don't know what the name for this is. But the little like the little folding boxes that just

keep folding back. Um, I'm not sure which you mean. Generally, you'll you'll find them with with images on the sides of them, and you kind of open them up and then you open them up a second way. And I mean, it all makes sense. You can one could certainly describe it and plan it out, uh, you know, geometrically, But um, I when I encounter them, I'm still like caught up in the illusion of the thing, Like it seems like there's some sort of weird infinity going on with it.

I don't think I'm familiar with what you're talking about. I gotta have these. I'll have to bring one in. Like I said, maybe there's a there's a more descriptive term for them, I'm sure, but but basically just little gadgets where it's not immediately clear exactly how it's functioning, I mean to a certain extent of Rubik's cube. Is

this right? Um? If you don't know the sort of the secret of the Rubik's cube and you encounter somebody who can quickly solve one and you cannot, it's it's astounding, like how is that working? How? How are these things even moving around? Uh? And of course this to come back around to, you know, the idea of puzzle boxes, I mean reminded of course of the lament configurations, which well it leave in the lore of the hell Raiser movies. It emerges from this same time period, the same this

time period of clockwork wonders. Yeah, the Marshawn configuration or whatever, No, the limitation, the Marshawn boxes there, whatever it is. Yeah, but it does ask you questions. It asks you the question, really, is the difference between pleasure and pain? Are you know, pleasure and pain indivisible? So? But to bring things back to the real world here, um, to focus on, to focus on uh, he built a pair of android waiters

that served dinner and cleared a table. He also created a mechanical flute player that could play four play twelve different melodies. And that's more impressive than it seems because this, uh, the flute player that he built a risk and writes about this, it actually played the flute. I mean like it blew into the flute and did the finger motions on on a real flute. So that that's I don't know, more impressive than just like a music box that happens to be holding a flute. It was a machine that

actually blows in and and plays the instrument. Yeah, and then ultimately, this is also a page from the history of self playing instruments, which we alluded to a little bit in our episode on the saxophone. But I think it is the sort of thing we could easily do a whole episode on in the future, instruments that play themselves or uh, robots that play the instrument. What's the

difference between to ultimately, Yeah, that's a good point. But so this gets us up to the seventeen thirties with focus on in which he achieves his true masterpiece, which is what the pooping duck. Of course, the pooping duck Linard de Gerratur, as Gabby Wood writes in Living Dolls, A Magical History of the Quest for Mechanical Life. Uh, this was a gold plated copper duck that could quack, drink, raise up on its legs, and most famously of all,

it would eat grain and then it would poop. Yes, so you would like get a piece of corn in your hand and feed it to the duck, and it would take it in its mouth, and then there would be a pause for a moment, and then the duck would poop something that looks convincingly like real duck poop. Right, And the way it was related to everyone is that the grain was passing through tubes to a chemical filled stomach and then through the duck's bowels. It's anus and

mechanical sphincter um. However, according to to Reskin, the duck didn't actually really convert food into poop, no, sad to say. What it did was it just collected the grain in one tube and pushed out real excrement from a different one. So ultimately it's just it's another illusion. It's a mechanical trick. It's uh. It has far more in common with the Roman puppet god Glicon than it does with you know,

the the the mythical wonders of Datalus. That's right. So it was a trick it wasn't actually performing biological digestion of food stuffs and and excreting. But I don't think that means that this historical object is uninteresting and more that it's completely a fraud. I mean again, it was presented as entertainments, presented the philosophical toy, so uh, part of it is like what does the machine appear to do and what does that make you think about the

actual biological act exactly? Yeah, risk and talks about how it raises these questions. We'll get back to that in a minute. But I thought it was interesting this stuff you came up with about why why Vocasan might have

been drawn to this project of a duck that poops. Yeah, this was brought up by by Gabby wood Um about how you know, it's suggest you know, looking at why a man of of of of his genius of Wisconsin Ginius was so enthralled by a mechanical duck that could defecate, right, Uh, you know, in addition to proving both popular and lucrative, so it apparently ended up scoring him a gig designing looms for the King of France. It did that, but also it's just sold it like it was it was

gangbusters like it made money. This was people were lining up to see the direct the duck poop. People would pay to get in to see the display was the pooping duck in the middle, and it had a flute player on one side and a the the automatic flute player you know, the automata h and another type of instrument player on the other side. So you got two automatic instrument players on either side and the duck pooping

in the middle. And risk in relates that people would pay like I don't remember exactly what the sum was, but she said it was like the sum to get in was about a normal work ker's week's worth of wages to get in to see this. But as for but there seems to be another layer here, and this is this is what Wood has to say. Quote focus on. It must be said. Was a man much preoccupied by the state of his body. He was plagued by an illness that had prevented him from eating. He suffered from

a fistula of the anus. The mechanicians particular mention of the bowels anus and sphincter of the duck. Parts audiences may have preferred to imagine for themselves might be seen as a reflection of his own personal preoccupations. Wow, huh, Yeah, because I mean, ultimately, what is the creation of an automaton but an attempt to understand biology enough to replicate its miracles. And of course even today we're not there yet.

The human body continually presents new puzzles and problems, big and small, annoying and life threatening, as if to remind us that we really don't have a perfect understanding or a perfect power over our physical bodies. Yeah, and this whole thing about the way a tamata that tried to resemble living beings, You know that there are all these

stories of creatures like this. There, of course lots of automaton automata modeled on humans, and then there are automata modeled on animals like ducks and swans and pigs and wolves and all these things from the time. Um, and that what they did was in trying to create these early robotic versions of the animals, they showed you what are the hard parts in making an animal work? So

you could recreate movement. You know, you could use gears and little levers and stuff like that to make the legs move around and make the wings flap and all that, but you couldn't get it to do certain other things. You couldn't get it to respond to certain kinds of stimuli. You know, you couldn't get like an automatic dog to respond to commands or something. And you couldn't, of course get it to digest and poop. And then I want

to read a passage from riskins essay quote. The defecating duck and its companions commanded such attention at such a moment because they dramatized two contradictory claims at once, that living creatures were essentially machines, and that living creatures were the antithesis of machines. It's masterful incoherence allowed the duck to instigate a discussion that's continuing nearly three centuries later.

Well that that, in a way, it's the it's the sign of a great work of our right and summon such cognitive dissidence in the mind where it's like what I'm seeing is possible and impossible at the same time. Yeah, it's it's both showing like, wow, you can create a mechanical duck. This convincing uh, And of course it was, you know, there's a lot that went into it. The ducks sat on top of this giant cabinet that had

these big rollers and gears underneath that powered its movements. Uh. And so a lot went into this, but he did manage to create a duck that would flap its wings and do all the stuff that amazed people. But it was also partially a fraud. And both of these facts at the same time, about what it could do and what it couldn't do, both seemed significant and indicating an opposite directions about what life was. Was it essentially mechanical

or not? And uh. Another thing I came across in risk In that I just wanted to read because I thought it was really interesting was that Edgar Allan Poe reacted to the defecating duck. Um. Uh. So Edgar Allan Poe had thoughts on the duck and on other automata,

including Charles Babbage's difference engine, which was an early mechanical calculator. So, to read from risk In quote in eighteen thirty six, Edgar Allan Poe wrote admiringly of Voca Son's duck and then used it to examine the plausibility of Kimperland's chess player. And that's of course, the famous mechanical turk chess player that would uh, that would it was? It was an automaton that was like a dude in a turban who

would play chess against people. Uh. And that also turned out to be a fraud, like the duck, because it was supposed to be just a machine, but it actually had real chess players inside controlling its movements. And so to pick up in risk and talk about it, girl and Poe uh the Kimberland's chess player, and of the other automaton then in the news Babbage's didn't difference engine. If the duck was ingenious, he wondered, quote, what shall we think of the engine of wood and metal which

can compute astronomical and navigation tables? He decided he did believe in the calculating engine, because arithmetic, like digestion and flute playing, was quote finite and determinate. However, he did not believe in the chess playing automaton because he said chess was an uncertain process. Looking over the history of automatas since vocasan Poe tried to define a criterion of possibility, only determinate processes, he decided could be mechanized, and so

this is kind of weird in multiple ways. Number One, he's he's Poe is partially right and partially wrong. He thinks the chess player is a fraud, which he was correct about, but he thinks the duck is real, that it was actually digesting, which of course he's also wrong about. But he actually of course says, well, yeah, you know, you could create an automatic adding machine. It seems to be the distinction he's making is that like a thing can't be automated if it has to respond continuously to

stimuli from its environment, um and a risk. In actually writes that many thinkers of the eighteenth and nineteenth century thought this way about the difference between machines and living things. Living things react to their environment, whereas machines do not. Machines are are sort of designed top down, and they're set going from the beginning, and they only execute their

preprogrammed behaviors. And this is funny to us because of course we're constantly surrounded by machines that continually respond to

ongoing inputs. Right. But then of course this is this is the the one of the big challenges and continuing challenges, and in robotics is like, it's what it's It's been one thing to create an automated machine or a robot that performs, say a dangerous but repetitive manufacturing task like welding up particular part if you keep it in a dark room away from people, um, except when it needs

to be serviced. Obviously, it's another scenario entirely. To have that machine work alongside a human It's another, uh situation entirely. Then on top of that, to imagine this machine going out to someone's house and working on a car there in their environment. Yeah. Uh, you know, likewise, the idea of a machine like living in your home, learning about your environment and learning about your activities. Uh yeah, So

I guess that's a good point. So I think Poe is obviously wrong that living things are responsive in a in an indeterminate way and machines aren't. But then again, there are limitations to the way that machines are responsive. Um. And this also actually is funny you mentioned industrial robots because this also you mentioned that this got focus on the duck got focus on a job re engineering the looms of France from the King of France. Yeah, he did go on to play an important role in attempts

to automate some parts of the French textile industry. And this is an interesting question because coming up with automata like making a duck that poops or or that pretends to poop, and making human that tries to play the flute and all this. These experiments, in these philosophical toys and curiosities, are actually ways of investigating what parts of a process can be automated and what actually can't and

has to be done by a human. So like, you can make an automaton that pretends to play chess, but you can't actually make an auto automaton in the you know, eighteenth century that knows what move to make in the game, and so and so. Figuring out stuff like this is crucial in automating factories. Like focus on figured out, yeah, okay, you can make a machine that does this part of the weaving process. You don't actually need a human for that, but you still do need a human for this other

thing that's impossible to automate. Right in the same scenario continues to happen in manufacturing. You know, looking at at a given manufacturing process and saying, okay, what are the parts that a machine can do well. Which are the parts that where a human needs to be there to excel? What are the the areas where they can potentially work along beside each other using what you know, sometimes referred

to as a cobot as opposed to a ropot um. Yeah, I mean, we're we're still fine tuning this process as the technology evolves. Yeah, exactly. Like one great example of one of these things that Focus Song found he could not automate when he was taking over the silk production, was this process of I guess it's getting the silk out of the worms, the initial you know, production of the silk thread. I mean, I think it's still kind of very similar. With a lot of textile related issues

are reportedly more difficult to to automate. I've heard some more things about aspects of of like the like the cardboard and paper industry. UM, and every industry is going to have like different areas where machines can deaf really excel, where they can be helpful, and where still the role of human human labor and human minds are essential to the process. And that's not even getting into the overall

u UM you know, supply chain issue. Because the factory, of course, is just one part of of the manufacturing world. You have to get raw materials to the factory or semiraw materials to the factory. You've got to get the finished product out, uh, you know, along the line and moving towards stores and uh and uh you know places of sale and uh and there's a whole I mean,

they're some of that can be automated these days. We're looking at a very near future where some people hope to see the transport automated, where you have self driving trucks doing a lot of the heavy lifting here. But you know, it's we're still continuing to figure out how to put that all together. But will they ever fully automate human defecation? Can a robot ever do all of our pooping for us? Um? Can robots do pooping for us? I don't know about that. That's that's maybe that's maybe

a long ways off. What about can they create our fat burgs for us? I'm sure they could. Well, let's just say that the age of actual pooping robots uh is here, and it has been here. And we're going to discuss more about that when we come back when

we break all right, we're back. So we've been talking about Jacques Devocason and the digesting duck, and so we've been talking about some of the implications of the early attempts to create automata that would do lifelike processes like digestion and early types of intelligence as as purported to be realized by automata but maybe not actually realized. But now what this duck claimed to do, we do have

some machines that can get into that territory digesting and pooping. Right, Yeah, we've remained fascinated with this, and I think a large part of it is that I ggestion is is unavoidable. It's an essential part of what we do. Is we've discussed and stuff to blow your mind, you know, it's it's an amazing process and it's a it's an essential

aspect of who and what we are. Each of us is essentially a giant earthworm, a tract that runs from our mouth to our anus that breaks down organic matter into a form that allows the removal of crucial nutrients and everything else, you know, arms legs, human culture. It's just an evolved flourish to enable this key function. Really, well, what we just some feathers on the digestive track exactly. So you know what, we might not want to think of ourselves like this. We may wish to focus on

the more refined and less biological aspects of humanity. It is the core of what we are. And if you truly want to engage in the work of a creator or a creatrix deity, then you better be able to create a digestive system. And you know, it's ultimately a crazy task because digestion does so much. You know, it's it's a disassembly line of amazingly refined biology depending on

physical systems we can't yet equal. Um, you know, just talking about like the fine motor movements that are involved in in moving matter through our intestines for yeah, like to create that mechanically or you know, or semi mechanically is daunting. Um. On top of this, nerve impulses are essential to the whole thing. I mean, there's there's communication going on through throughout your digestive system, and then there's

all the chemical and microbial aspects of the process. So it's not it's obviously it's not just this mechanical or biomechanical process of digestion. Uh, you know, our the their chemicals involved, there are microbial inhabitants are involved in the process, and then the end result needs to be energy, you know, for the machine, uh, you know, to to really digest it has to be able to draw energy out of it, usable energy out of the process. Otherwise is it really

better than the duck? Now that is a philosophical toy. It makes you ask that question. Is just turning food into poop but not getting any energy out of it necessarily a lesser scientific accomplishment than actually drawing usable energy from it. Well we'll get back to that for sure, but but let's start with something else. Let's start with taste for example. Okay, I mean taste is a vital aspect of digestion. Yes, I mean, if you stop and think about it for a second, it is gustatory perception.

And granted, the human condition complicates everything, and it certainly complicates taste, but it's essentially they're along with smell to help us evaluate what we're considering digesting. Yeah, I mean a taste and smell or or chemo sensitive or chemo receptor senses. You know, there are chemistry set of the body. Yeah, and so here's an area though where there's there's long been a necessity, uh, you could say, for a machine

that can taste food. I mean, kings, queens and other powerful individuals have long needed a way to determine if food and drink might be poisoned before they consume it.

That's where the goblets of certain materials come in, right, Yeah, we talked about this and stuff to aboil your mind, say goblets made from rhino horn that seeming depending on who you're talking to, seems like they may have um reacted to certain poisons like frost up in the presence of certain chemicals and therefore might have worked, but they'd certainly I think be partially dissolved by like a strong alkaline. Yeah.

And uh, and then on top of that, there's sort of like magical ideas associated with it, And certainly they were an anti poison magics employed throughout history. But one of the best ways to deal with it was always and still to a large extent still is to just have somebody else taste your food for you, taste your wine for you, somebody expendable. Yeah, and if they don't die or get get ill, then you know that it's probably okay. Um, Jeffrey ate the wings and looks like

we're good to go. And Uh, one of the crazy things is that, yeah, this is still very much something that is used in the world. In fact, yeah, there are still food tasted So I was reading an interesting Snoops article about this, and they pointed out that the White House the apparently still uses food tasters, or at least there's definite proof that they use them. Under President

Barack Obama, there were several incidents. Uh, that's definitely stated or supported the fact that he used one, both domestically and abroad, like for instance, not being able to participate in a meal because the food tester wasn't there. Uh, that's sort of thing. Um. This of course raises a question does the current US president use the food taster? And I've seen I was looking around trying to find

any confirmation. There are a lot of articles about concerned with what sorts of foods the current president eats, but I saw no discussion of whether he employed or that the Secret Service employed and a food taster. And how does that change if you're not talking about food prepared on the premises by a chef or whatever. But maybe imagine a president we're eating a big mac that was procured from a McDonald's franchise location, were brought in in a bucket of KFC. Yeah, um, yeah, I don't know.

I couldn't see any sources on that, but it seems like if it were, if we're definitely say a secret service uh standard during the previous presidency, it stands to reason that it may still be a practice today. Uh and understandably so um uh. One wonders though, if, if, if one can really roll with that much KFC. I don't know, but at any rate, it is interesting to you know, to drive home that you know it is advanced.

Is the technology may have gotten Um, you know, we're still not to the point where we're going to send the human food tasters home when we're put putting you know, high profile lives on the line. This seems wrong, Like I mean, I understand the kings and queens of yester centuries, uh saying Okay, here's Jeffrey, the expendable food taster. It doesn't matter if he'd eyes, you know, he can taste it and make sure there's no poison. That that seems

wrong today. Should shouldn't we have a machine that can test for poison without having to subject a real human being to the potential dangers of poisoning. Well, we have technologies um that have that have that have been in in the work. So it was twelve years ago that an electro mechanical sum elier was debuted in Japan and it made headlines for identifying human flesh is bacon for instance.

UM And of course it looked kind of like you know, you would imagine a cute um like anime robot looking, but it was the work of any C System Technologies and my university, and it was designed to deal explicitly with cheese and wine. But the really cool thing about him is that, you know, is that we had There are other technologies that can test food that can see, you know, what were the contents, but they generally involved destroying the food, which I guess is kind of what

a food taster does. They have to at least take a bite out of that presidential big Mac to determine to what extent it is poison. Well, I mean to think about the way that it would be difficult for you to actually determine the taste of most foods just by say, licking them. You really need to sort of chew them up and feel them throughout your mouth. Yeah. But the crazy thing about this is that it was a scanner. It was, as it was described in Nature,

it as a photonic tasting system. So again it means that you could, uh, it was non invasive, and then you could you could just point it at wine or cheese and and get get a sense of what it's nutritional data might be or what its chemical composition might be. However, looking around, I couldn't find much info on where this

area of research has lead. But at any rate, it has a lot of potential to it as as just a tool for enforcing food safety and and maybe maybe getting to the point, uh later down the line where there'll be some sort of maybe handheld device and you can essentially you know, Star Trek, you're a big mac, and see if it has been compromised. All right, So if our voices sound a little bit weird now, or sound any different, it's because we just had to hop

into another studio. But here we are, we're still going. So we just talked about this idea of like photonic

tasting of foods. Obviously that kind of tasting is a little bit different than the idea of tasting for poison, which we were talking about a minute ago, but it's also very different from the overall digestive process, right right, And as we get into digestion, I want to discuss something that is outside the strict domain of just science and gets more into this place where art meets science.

And it's the work of a Belgian artist by the name of Vim Delvoy who created a series of Kloaca machines over the years, and each of these is a kind of mechanical and chemical disassembly machine for food. So he consulted gastro intestine experts as well as plumbers and rolled out the first version just like Cloaca one in two thousand and he's kept going with these. Uh, like the most current version that We've been multiple iterations of Cloaka, but the most current version is active right now in

the Royal Museums of Fine Arts of Belgium. And you can even have a nest cam up so you can you can go online if you look up them Delvo that's w I M D E L V O y E. Uh. Look up his website, there's all of his works on there. Has a pretty good website and uh. And then there's a link to this live video and you can watch this machine uh slowly uh turning food into poop, slowly digesting food. Uh. If you know what you were looking at, you would just assume that it's just some random piece

of machinery, perhaps in a factory somewhere. There's nothing particularly dynamic or night marrick about it. But yet it is a mechanical digestion system. So part of his whole artistic vision here is that this machine, the Kloec machine, is essentially useless. All it does is turned food into poop without generating anything worthwhile out of the process. And his argument here is that thus two is the modern world, all consuming, all pooping, and producing nothing of real value

in the process. Because again this is art. But he's but but it's it's it's more than just you know what. What he's created here does have a lot in common with the digesting the defecating duck. Uh, you know there, except he's he's actually using a chemical process. There's a chemical and mechanical process taking place in kloeaca Um that

is not there with the duck. But he has also created something that is something of a philosophical toy right that we're supposed to look at it, and he makes us think about about the traditions he's playing with here and the statement he's making about modern society, but makes us think in a slight different way because here the process of at least not the whole process of digestion, but at least the process of turning fresh food into fecal matter essentially is no longer one of these like

great mysteries that can't be accessed by the mechanists. Right now, this one, we've got this part sort of figured out, though we still there's still maybe some things about digestion we don't fully have figured out. Oh yeah, and I'm not I don't mean to imply it is a perfect facsimile of human digestion, because there's a lot going on, but he is. He has created a reasonable bio mechanical facsimile of the of the process. And when you look at pictures of it, it looks like an assembly line.

It looks like this, and depending on the lighting, some of the images are wonderful because it looks it looks like something out of the matrix, you know, um, with these like uh, these kind of containers hanging from this uh, this platform, and there's like even a small conveyor belt that I think is used at the very end. In some instances, the poop has been sold at the very end of it, Like this is the thing you can purchase as your souvenir of Cloaca. Does it come in

a container? They just put it in your hands. I think it's in a container. Yeah, like uh uh and uh you know, and he has all like cool logos in line, Like there's the Cloaca logo that has kind of the it's not quite the Michelin man. It's Mr Clean, I guess. But he's like a genie with intestines. That's interesting. Um. But he then this isn't the only time that he's used um um technology in uh in his work. For instance, he also produced a project titled Chapelle and MoU Dam,

which makes use of X ray technology. So he had X rays taken up individuals engaged in various sex acts so that the X rays could then be transformed into stained glass cathedral windows. Okay, so that's this. I think this illustrates all One of the things I love about them Delvo is that he he seems like a character from a William Gibson novel, and I really loved that about him of a cyberpunk art rascal. Yeah yeah, But anyway, Kloaka is very much in the spirit of the pooping duck.

But the next part of the equation, obviously, like where do we go from here, would be to consider the creation of machines that don't just turn food into poop, but they can potentially acquire food on in their own and then maybe even obtain energy from its meal, because that's ultimately that's something Cloaka is not doing. The cloak

is not going out and grazing in the field. It is a machine that is fed, uh and then produces poop at the other end, Uh, it is not catching food on its own, and it is not you know, creating a energy out of what it is doing. It is not thriving on its meal. And that brings us

to the echo bot and its various kin. So roboticists at Bristol Robotics Laboratory has been a great deal of time over the years developing robot predators that hunt down and eat living organisms, or could potentially hunt down and eat living organism. This sounds like a good project, Well, no, it is it is and then break all of this

down into energy. Yeah, and I know it makes people think of various like terminator scenarios, but we're not talking about large predators that would say hunt down like adult mammals or like they're not going after deer. But for instance, they had an earlier project, slug bot product project where the thing would be that it would it would it would eat garden slugs and break them down for energy. And they've since they moved on to Ecobot two that

would eat flies. They also explored the possibilities of plankton eating robot robots that would be you know, you know out in the ocean. Uh. And then the eco bat three. This was the world's first robot to exhibit true self sustainability.

It boasted onboard fluid circulation and this robot was capable of operating within an enclosed environment for seven days by collecting its food and water from from like an arena environment that consisted of like liquid food in different dishes um and the The actual digesting is done by a

series of microbial microbial fuel cells or m fcs. So bacteria consumes food and produces hydrogen atoms as a byproduct, the hydrogen goes into a fuel cell which generates electricity to power the robot plus uh, you know, pure water, which the robot then the essentially kind of drinks to keep itself from being dehydrated. I guess you could say the remaining biomass goes through the entire cycle once more before being eliminated. And then in the years since, they've

moved on to ecobot four. That's the most current version of it, which is all about peering the bio the power requirements of various electronic applications, robotic or non robotic, with the power generated by the MFC stacks. And this is There are a lot of cool projects that the Bristle Robotics Laboratory is involved in, um a lot of them involving bio energy. For instance, they have one that is used using urine to power up a mobile phone

via this microbial fuel cell. It demonstrates for the first time the charging of a commercially available mobile phone using microvial fuel cells fed with real human urine. So I mean, like in this, you know, we're kind of going beyond merely this absurd dream of wanting to create machines that do what humans do or pooh, what humans pooh? Uh

is the case may be. But the getting into a situation where it's like, okay, if we couldn't if we can create something like digestion, like true digestion in a machine, like what are the various applications They're like, if you have a machine that essentially eats and produces uh energy for your cell phone, then that's that's wonderful. That's like,

that's a potential real world application. Likewise, the idea of some sort of marine drone that doesn't have to be recharged, it just simply eats plankton, uh as if it were a you know, filter feeding whale or fish. And they they're working on other products to robert robots that decom pose artificial gills for robots in various applications for water clean up and wastewater management using these m f c s so uh. Their website is definitely worth checking out.

If you go to a Bristol Robotics Lab dot com um, it'll give you a pretty good insight into like where we are and where we seem to be going with the possibility for digesting robots. So robots that do some

something that is very similar to digestion and humans. Well, it's really interesting to see yet again how um a project, I mean, this happens throughout the history of technology, a project that began as a kind of you could say generously and intellectual exercise you could say ungenerously, just sort

of like a pointless little display. Um. Either way, it has progressed in something that you could imagine being actually useful, like I imagine oh, I don't know, you know, as self powering sort of robots that that for it throughout the environment, say cleaning up litteral waste or detoxifying the environment and uh and sustaining themselves through you know, the normal kinds of biomatter that would be eaten by animals anyway, right, Yeah, I mean it's it's I guess the thing is with

any technology, they're cascading effects, they're they're they're different applications that spin off from the core investigation. I mean, we see that one of the post notable examples is the space program, and it's often touted that, Yeah, even if you're not convinced about the necessity for human space travel and exploration of our our solar system. UM, which I want to stress that I think, I do think those

are important exercises for for our species. But even if you're not totally on board with those, there are all these other technologies that spin out of that conquest and uh and many of those have very important real world, everyday applications that you can't always predict, right, And the

unpredictable nature, I think is to the key. It's like, well, just because you can't think of a way that it's going to pay off, doesn't mean it's not going to pay off, right, Yeah, And just this kind of comes down to the basic One of the basic facts about scientific investigation in general is that you know, they're all sorts of studies out there that can be criticized with the whole shrimp on a treadmill criticism and saying, what, you know, this is ridiculous, what why are you testing

for this? Why are you? Why are you? Why are you putting tax dollars into this sort of research just to find out you know, no, um, you know how fast it shrimp runs or whatever the criteria happens to be. I mean, I think the time to criticize the study is if there's something wrong with its methodology. I mean, either if it's like unethical or something, or if you have reason to doubt that its results are sound. If

you don't have those issues, then I don't know. I kind of hesitate to attack studies even that seem frivolous one way or another, because you don't exactly know how that knowledge might be applied. There might be things that the researchers have in mind that you don't realize, right, And if nothing else, they're contributing to our our overall knowledge of the natural world and uh and and pushing that that boundary, pushing that threshold. And we often don't

know what lies beyond that threshold. But the next level of exploation of discovery will be you don't know what information might be useful to somebody in the future when facing a problem that we haven't even encountered yet exactly. All right, So does that do it for machines that poop? I think so? I mean, I'm sure we left some things out, you know that generally, like in terms of just looking at methods and technologies for breaking down organic matter. Uh,

you know, there's some other projects out there. Uh, these especially the echo bot program is probably one of the more notable ones, and also one of the more glamorous because you have you know, anytime you have discussion of a robot eating garden slugs, obviously that's gonna that's gonna

to everyone's attention, that's going to garner some headlines. But I think this provides sort of a nice overall, especially to begin with something that is an invention that is not or a desire for an invention that is not born out of necessity, and exploring how it can come back around to something that that does satisfy some necessities or or attempts to satisfy some necessities in our world. Totally, this has been more interesting and more relevant to the

history of technology than I would have imagined. But I do I do implore everyone the next time you're watching a robot movie, ask yourself, does this robot poop? Um? Well? Actually, you know what this does come up because I think it is still a part of our intuition that something about the chemical digestion process and the ability to sustain oneself on organic food matter is integral to our idea

of what's alive. There's even a scene, um, do you remember the scene in the movie Ai where there is the robot child that's having trouble bonding with its family, and essentially the android wants he wishes he were a real boy, and he there's one scene where I think what he does is he tries to eat food, like he puts food into his mouth and choose it up and tries to swallow it, which, of course, you know,

he's not good for him because he's a robot. But I think the implication is he sees that as like an essentially truly organic and human activity that he can't do, and if he could do, maybe that would make him

a real boy. Yeah, yeah, this is This is something that has explored a bit on the uh the rather excellent British series Humans, which basically takes uh you know, an android ubiquitous android technology scenario and um and explores some interesting themes there while also commenting on various uh you know, current events and current problems and uh you know, such as the refugee crisis and so forth, and also just our general tendency to uh focus on mothering and

treat people horribly for various reasons that you know, pertain to their their race, their ethnicity, their gender, their sex, their sexual preferences, etcetera. Uh, but but in that series, the at least some of the robots, perhaps all of them, have the ability to to eat human food and it goes into like a balloon like receptacle in their throat and upper chest, which then they could like they empty manually later like they take it back out of their throat and empty it into a you know, a sink

or something. So the eating is merely like four appearances, it's like an aesthetic thing. Yeah, And I think and there are some cases where the robots are using it deceptively, but I think in general it's there because there was a there was a realization that humans want a human experience out of the machine that they've created in their own likeness, and a big part of that is being able to share a meal. You want to be able

to go up to lunch with a friend exactly. So Yeah, anyone interested in a good robot viewing, I recommend show. I think three seasons have come out, and uh, you know, they get into issues regarding titological singularity. Um, then it's you know, it's it's a it's a fun series. And then more to the point, it does make you think cool, all right, Well, Yeah, that's it for pooping ducks then,

and uh we'll hope to join you next time. In the meantime, you can check out all the other episodes of Invention at invention pot dot com and we're always open up. We're always open to suggestions for the future, key and inventions. You would like us to cover new looks at past Invention episodes We've we've covered uh let us know. We've received some wonderful feedback from folks already. We've been adding things to the list and we hope to do uh cover some of those in the future.

Definitely huge thanks as always to our excellent audio producer Tory Harrison and our guest producer today Maya Cole. If you would like to get in touch with us with feedback on this episode or any other to suggest to topic for the future, just to say hello, you can email us at contact at invention pod dot com. Invention is production of I Heart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio because the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows. H