A MECHANICAL MAN.

Evening Star, Issue 19723, 25 November 1927, Page 6

A MECHANICAL MAN.

Some English papers have been rhapsodising over a now invention which is already. being applied practically in America. It is certainly a remarkable contrivance. Called tho “mechanical man,” the Westinghouse Electric C mpany in New York has been experimenting with a machine wliich obeys tho human voice' and executes orders. When a demonstration was given recently, at the command “ Open Sesame” it opened a door, and at other spoken orders it lit a series of lights, worked an automatic sweeper, and turned on a searchlight. Three of the devices are now in use in the Water Department in Washington, taking the place of human tenders of the reservoirs which supply the city with water. When questioned over the telephone circi. - ’: they answer by appropriate sound waves—all within the register of the human voice—how high the water is in any particular reservoir, and they faithfully obey vocal directions to raise or lower the level. Tho mechanism responds only to sound, aqd has to be addressed in tho exact key to which it is attuned, or it fails to act. 'The ‘Observer,’ in a leading article, discusses the new invention, with references to Keats, Aristotle, and Plato. “We cannot refuse the name of a man,” it declares, “ to a machine which speaks when spoken to.” It finds portents in the passing from the specialised machine to the general automaton in mind’s control of inanimate matter. “Mechanical man is still experimental and primitive; but Platonic vision Las its glimpse of the full pattern laid up somewhere in heaven,” Such transcendentalism may do more than : ustice to the wonders of the new device, surprising as its capacity seems to be. Its capacity will certainly be limited, just because jt is a machine, ‘though

the developments which may com© of it ' mav bo extensive, in its principle there is nothing new. A leading British physicist and inventor, Dr Fournier d’Albo, recalls an automatic dog which lie saw some years ago which, when called by its name, would run out from its kennel, and, he adds, “the Patent Office is bulging with records of applications for patents for ‘ sound controlled mechanisms.’” The fascination of all those devices, he goes on to say, seems to lie solely in control by the human voice. “ Every machine is, after - all, a kind of ‘ Robot/ and countless mechanical and electrical contrivances can be set in motion by pressing a button. There seems to be a special fascination about the fact that you need not even press a button, but need only give your commands in your ordinary voico anjl they are obeyed to tho letter. ‘ Come, and ho comctii.’ It is certainly more lordly, archaic, and oriental, but the automaton has one drawback: ho will obey anybody who says tho words in tho right tone of voice, whereas a dog, for instance, will differentiate between a stranger and his master.” Nevertheless, there arc, Dr d’Albo admits, great possibilities in Ibis American invention. There are some thirty notes in tho human voice, .each of which might be made to control different mechanisms: on tho principle of using different successions of notes, that range might bo practically nulo/i----nitely extended. At the Model Engineer Exhibition held in'London in Sep tember a model was displayed by Major Raymond Phillips of three engines, with trains, on three separ.itc tracks At the word “Ahead!” the three trains started and raced round the tracks until tho word “Stop!” was uttered. They also reversed their direction on the w r ord “Backward.” These three controls were worked from one microphone, because, in this in stance, it was a simple series of operations affecting one set of objects connected together. A commentator upon this invention has remarked that, iu the. case of tho “ automatic man,” iu which it is presumed different sets of objects would be operated by different motions, it would probably bo necessary to have a separate microphone tuned up for each motion. Some sys-. tern of tuning forks ivould no doubt have to be employed in order to put the operator in possession of the correct note, otherwise he would bo unable to set the machine in motion. Major Phillips himself has predicted tho day “when, by speaking into a microphone at one’s fireside, one will be able to command tho sitting room door to open, the window blinds to come down, apparently on their ow'n accord, or give a prompt emergency summons to the police. We shall see most amazing happenings during the next hundred years, though our great problem is first to discover means for the wireless transmission of electrical energy.” Mr R. J. Wensley, tho inventor of tho “ mechanical man/' thinks that it will conceivably enable a housewife to work her servantless household — cook, sweep, put coal on the fire, and so on—while comfortably engaged in playing bridge in another house.” It is not suggested that tho machine may do tho bridge playing.