ABSTRACT
If […] the shuttle would weave and the plectrum touch the lyre without a hand to guide them, chief workmen would not want servants, nor masters slaves.
Aristotle (384-322 BCE) Philosopher, in Politics, Book I
Mechanization improved manufacturing by replacing muscle power with water power, steam engines, or electricity. Yet, in almost all cases, manufacturing still needed a human brain to control the process. There were very few exceptions, for example, the Jacquard loom from 1801, where cards with holes designed the weaving pattern, or the Thomas Blanchard copying lathe from the 1820s, able to copy the shape of existing objects. Yet, the vast majority of products were shaped and assembled using human intelligence to guide the tools.
