The golden maidens can act.
Talos can guard.
Pygmalion's statue can live.
The Golem can obey.
The Argo can advise.
But their defining abilities are generally given to them.
What happens when the artificial being can change itself through experience?
Machine as Learner.
A traditional machine is built in a particular state and executes a structure provided by its maker.
A learning system differs in one decisive respect:
its encounter with the world changes what it subsequently does.
experience → internal change → changed future behavior
myth
initiation
memory
imitation
association
conditioning
adaptation
myth
technē
automata
mechanism
calculation
programmability
computation
LEARNING + MACHINE
The history of machines is also the history of what humans have wished to externalize.
strength
movement
memory
judgment
companionship
agency
learning