Humans' love affair with the automaton, better known as the robot, dates back to before the everyday use of electricity in civilization. But the early machines that dominated the Western imagination hardly resembled the robots of today. In "Sublime Dreams of Living...

Humans' love affair with the automaton, better known as the robot, dates back to before the everyday use of electricity in civilization. But the early machines that dominated the Western imagination hardly resembled the robots of today. In "Sublime Dreams of Living...