Notes from a panel at Capricon 45, Chicago, Feb. 7, 2024. Any mistakes are mine. The panelists are not responsible for any errors here.

Brian U. Garrison, Micaiah Johnson, Ada Palmer (moderator)

In the arc of human invention, automatons predate paper. That means before we thought “sure would be nice to write things in a convenient and portable manner” we thought “sure would be nice to have an inhuman creation in our shape that moves.” Why have automatons been with us so long, in reality and in fiction, and what roles and purposes do they fulfill in writing and culture and philosophy?

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