Artificial Intelligence in 1770 the Mechanical Turk!

Mechanical Turk the AI who played Chess in 1770

One evening when I and my friend was on a walk to the river near my hometown he told me a fascinating story of late 18^th century, where a person created an automated chess playing machine in such an era where artificial intelligence has never been imagined. You might be surprised even when computers weren’t invented how come a person could create such a thing but, my friend this is absolute truth, so let’s begin the story of this Machine which is known as the Mechanical Turk (An artificial intelligence who plays chess).

Wolfgang von
Kempelen

It’s a humans trait that he can do anything to get his/her love of the life similarly Wolfgang von Kempelen invented an automated chess machine in 1770 to impress the Empress Maria Theresa of Austria. This machine was so power full that it can performs the knight’s tour (a puzzle where the player has to move a knight to occupy every square of the chessboard exactly once). This machine holds the record of defeating many famous personalities like Napolean Bonaprate and Banjamin Franklin. And it’s basically built with a huge wooden box and a statue on the top of it who play the chess while
moving every single piece of it with accuracy. So Von Kempelen showed his machine to his love in front of all the royal people among them and open his cabinet of machine to show that there’s no monkey business going inside and then he ask for the opponent in the whole exhibition and the first person to face that machine was Ludwig von Cobenzl (Minister to the queen) and known as the member of Illuminati but unfortunately he was dispatched by the Turk under 30 minutes many challenges came forward that day but Turk defeated every single of them and this news of automated chess machine spread across the world like a fire. But suddenly he started to hesitate for showing his machine anymore and after 10 year he dismantled his machine, but Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II ordered him to rebuild his Turk for the visit of Grand Duke of Russia Paul Alexandrovich and that’s how the Turk’s tour of Europe begins.

Mechanical Turk then first publically displayed in the France and there he defeated the ambassador of USA in France Benjamin Franklin even including the best chess player of that time Francois-Andre Danican Philidor has claimed to have been given one to the toughest game of his life. Von Kempelen visited whole Europe exhibiting his Turk and returned to its original place and passed in 1804.

Then Von Kempelen’s son sold his machine to the man named Johann Nepomuk Malzel for 10,000 Francs and Malzel was a character who stole other's inventions and took the credits for that. But

Johann Nepomuk
Malzel

Malzel’s true intentions for buying that machine is to make money and he easily managed to recover his money, Malzel also made certain improvements in the Turk including the Voice box that allowed to declare check in French but Malzel only performs exhibitions rarely every once in a while, and then the Turk faced Napolean Bonaparte basically known as the Military warrior capable to turning any situation in his advantage but this time it was hard for the Turk as the Napolean offered him to play as a white and to place his first move and then Turk got trembled and again till the 3^rd match Turk has totally lost his temper and swiped his entire hand over the board with aggression and frustration. Now again another match held between them but without messing up with pieces and by playing as black and this time just after 19 moves Napolean Bonaparte was beaten.

And this time the great revolution of machine came in the long scale industries the invention by the Von Kempelen got the huge attention and now people started to fear the machine that it will took over the world like now we fear from AI. In 1819 the person known as the father of computer Charles Babbage faced the Mechanical Turk and off course he loosed his matches against him but by the loss the idea of machine thinking itself strikes in his head and after 2 years he developed his Automatic Mechanical Computing Device usually known as Computer these days so many people were afraid and some were inspired.

Edgar Allan Poe

In 1826 Malzel took the Turk to the New York where he opened an exhibition to display his amazing
machine who defeats all the opponent in chess and there one of the spectator Edgar Allan Poe famous for the American literature but back then he was just a normal reporter for the newspaper and he called that machine a bullshit he said that the intelligence behind he Turk was not mechanical at all but human. Then he started his investigation on the Turk and attended many shows of Malzel to observe the Turk.

So now you probably thinking that this is some sort of time travel mystery or you may link this story to the alien whatever but the reason behind this whole Mechanical Turk was something other than this and Edgar Allan Poe himself discovered the truth behind this machine.

The Secret behind Mechanical Turk

Edgar Allan Poe in Mlazel’s exhibition he had seen something strange or you can say someone strange, a person named William Schlumberger who is the assistant of the Malzel and helps him in the dismantling of the Turk. Now the Edgar noticed that he saw William before and after the game but he’s never there during the game and one day when William got ill one day before the exhibition the show was canceled for the short time. And then Edgar revealed this secret in front of whole world and published the article in the famous newspaper with a name “Malzel’s chess player” and Edgar founded to be right about the working of Turk that William was the one who was playing chess on the behalf of Turk from inside the body of machine and then The TURK got declared as an illusion and it was not the first AI it was just a magic trick which is got performed for 84 years.

Working of the Turk

You see all the gears and all mechanical stuff was just a smoke screen the main intelligence rather we say human was actually behind that there was a seat for the person to sit and due to the magnets of the chess pieces he was able to see all the moves which opponent makes and he was also able to make his own move with a mechanism build inside called Pantograph which mimics his hand movements on the chess board above

About the chess players of Malzel

Well William was not the only first player of his there was many unknown players among the world and one was the William Lewis who was the first player to be called as Grandmaster and these all player were so poor and have no money at all so Malzel used his money power to convince those players to play on the behalf of Turk and then Malzel got shifted to the Cuba after this.

After story of Turk

In Cuba the William Schlumberger who used to p
lay chess on the behalf of Turk died and again Malzel returned to New York depressed and as all depressed man he started to drink and died from the Alcohol poisoning. After this the Turk was bought by American Physician John Kearsley Mitchell and kept that Turk into his museum but unfortunately in 1854 the Turk got burnt in the fire catch by the museum Mitchell arrived on the scene just in time to watch the Turk burn. But he was helpless because the Turk was too heavy and fire was so ferocious then he watched the Turk until it got turned into ash and shouted loudly CHECK CHECK CHECK!!!!!!

And here's the blogspot of my friend who told me about this 👇

https://artishzone.blogspot.com/