prize13-9, Exercise 1: The Turk

Model answer (check the details):

The Turk was a chess-playing figure seated behind a cabinet, shown in Vienna by Wolfgang von Kempelen in 1770. The cabinet was displayed as full of clockwork, but a skilled human chess player was hidden inside. He followed the game through mechanisms linked to the pieces and worked the figure's arm, so the machine appeared to think.

The story is still told because it raises a question that has not gone away: when a system seems intelligent, who or what is really doing the work? It is also an early example of human labour hidden behind a show of automation, a pattern that has recurred with later technologies.

Care: the details of the mechanism are known from later accounts and are partly disputed.