Hoax! – "The Mechanical Turk"

(Aired December 22, 2025 – iHeartMedia)

Episode Theme & Purpose (03:12)

In this episode, hosts Dana Schwartz and Lizzy Logan explore the legendary 18th-century hoax known as The Mechanical Turk—a supposed chess-playing automaton that fooled courts, scientists, and the general public across Europe and America for decades. The episode not only unpacks how this elaborate ruse worked but also delves into the philosophical and technological implications of "machine intelligence," faith in technology, and why humans want to believe in the impossible.

Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Setting the Stage: The Allure of Automatons

(04:47–11:48)

• Chess as a Backdrop:
  Neither host claims chess mastery, emphasizing accessibility:
  “I like playing chess…I love doing, like, tutorials and puzzles online. But I'm not good at chess at all because I'm too impatient. I just like moving the pieces.” (Dana, 03:47)

• The Age of Automatons:
  The 1700s see a boom in mechanical marvels for the nobility, blending engineering with spectacle.

  • Automatons like Jacques de Vaucanson’s flute player and his “digesting duck” drive public fascination and scientific advancement—even inspiring inventions like flexible tubing.
  • Dana: “People are doing weird little interesting things and it is progress…a lot of things are made by people, like, fucking around.” (11:41)

2. Meet Wolfgang von Kempelen & The Birth of the Hoax

(11:48–17:58)

• The Inventor:
  Kempelen, a charming bureaucrat and engineer, becoming an imperial favorite due to his intellect and technical curiosity.
• Genesis of the Turk:
  Prompted by courtly rivalry and national pride to outdo a French illusionist, Kempelen promises to create something “far better” (16:17), and is granted time off his bureaucratic work to do so.
  • “Babe Ruth calling a shot. Kennedy being like, we're gonna go to the moon…” (Lizzy, 16:17)
• Introducing The Turk (1770):
  A life-size figure in Ottoman garb at a chessboard; the performer opens the cabinet doors to show off its intricate machinery, appearing to rule out trickery. The spectacle is as much about performance as technology.

3. Mechanics & Performance: How the Hoax Worked

(19:36–26:12)

• Presentation Prowess:
  Kempelen’s act combines showmanship and clever misdirection. He’s careful to open compartments, shine candles through, and let people inspect the “automaton,” even performing auxiliary tricks (like the Knight’s Tour) and mimicking speech, before quickly retiring the latter.

  • “This is like literally what magicians do before they like saw a lady in half.” (Lizzy, 22:56)

• Immediate Impact:
  The Turk impresses Austrian royalty and intellectuals, generating widespread debate and speculation—could a machine really think and play chess?

  • “It’s not just a magic trick. It's also like, can you beat this robot in chess? There's a competition element.” (Lizzy, 26:24)

4. The Legend Travels: Fame, Rumors, and More Hoaxes

(27:10–44:41)

• The European Tour & Famous Opponents:
  The Mechanical Turk enthralls courts from Paris to London. It beats most challengers (both elite players and luminaries like Benjamin Franklin), loses to a few and always stirs debate.

  • “Philidor plays the Turk. Philidor does win. But he later says it was a really hard time. And he says that it was pretty terrifying.” (Dana, 38:22)

• Proliferation of Theories:
  Journalists, engineers, and even famed writers like Edgar Allan Poe (73:32) try and fail to fully explain how it works. The most persistent theory—a child or small adult hidden inside, possibly manipulating the arm via a mirror and magnets. However, discrepancies in measurements and clever cabinet construction stymie definitive proof for decades.

  • “These people have thought a lot about what the mind can and cannot do.” (Lizzy, 61:36)

• Unexpected Consequences:
  The Turk inspires true technical innovations:

  • Edmund Cartwright, after witnessing the Turk, is inspired to invent and patent the first power loom—a genuine leap for the Industrial Revolution. (44:41)

5. Changing Hands: Showmen, Con Men, and American Adventures

(48:40–71:07)

• The Turk’s New Masters:
  After Kempelen’s death, the machine is sold multiple times, upgraded, and further presented by showmen like Johann Maelzel—a flamboyant and often unscrupulous engineer who takes the Turk on extensive tours.
  • “Let’s just—he's a showman. Dare I say, the greatest showman.” (Dana, 51:19)
• Meeting the Greats:
  The Turk faces off against Napoleon (with a legendary story: after Napoleon attempts to cheat, the Turk sweeps the pieces off the board! 53:15), P.T. Barnum (“You got the goods, kid.” 72:39), and even Edgar Allan Poe (73:32), who analyzes the trick as a precursor to detective fiction.

6. The Secret is Revealed (82:31–84:43)

• How It Really Worked:
  When finally disassembled in the 1840s, the secret is explained by Dr. John Kearsley Mitchell and later publicized by his son Silas Weir Mitchell:
  • Inside, a skilled chess player hides on a sliding seat, moving as different panels are opened during the “inspection”.
  • The chessboard uses magnetic pieces: magnets beneath each square transmit piece positions to a mirror-board below, allowing the hidden player to follow the game, then manipulate the Turk’s arm and hand via rods and pulleys.
  • The use of candles covers for smoke and the whirring mechanisms, and secret signals (number wheels, taps, candelabra) ensured coordination between operator and showman.
  • “[The operator] could follow the game upside down. And then he would have his own board… able to move this thing that then would move the arm of the Turk...” (Dana, 84:02)

7. Legacy & Philosophical Questions

(86:22–91:05)

• Romanticized Myths:
  Countless romantic stories about the Turk’s operators (like a heroic, legless Polish revolutionary smuggled out by Kempelen) circulated, revealing the wishful thinking and credulity the hoax played upon.
• From Hoax to AI: The Limits of Machine “Intelligence”
  The Turk raised profound challenges—could a machine really “think”? Later, actual computers (Deep Blue, etc.) would genuinely defeat chess grandmasters, but even now, the episode asks:
  • Does programmatic computation count as “thinking,” or merely clever information processing?
  • Searle’s Chinese Room thought experiment is invoked to question if a computer, or even a Turk-style automaton, can “understand” what it is doing, or is simply following rules.
    • “Is a computer thinking if it is playing chess, is my question to you.” (Dana, 87:50)
    • “I think they are playing chess. I don’t know if they’re thinking.” (Lizzy, 91:13)
• Modern Echoes:
  The Mechanical Turk’s trickery is directly paralleled with present-day “AI” demos, such as recent examples from Tesla robots or Amazon’s cashier-less stores, which rely on hidden human labor or misdirection—updated for the present but similar in spirit.
  • “It’s been 250 years since the Mechanical Turk and Tesla was still doing a Mechanical Turk, just with a better-looking robot.” (Dana, 91:58)

Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Rao Khan’s Exoneration:
  • “While in Benat, he solved a local mystery, freeing several wrongly imprisoned men from jail.” (Dana, 13:42)
• Kempelen’s Self-Promotion:
  • “I will return within a year with an invention far better than anything this French guy has.” (Dana, 16:17)
• Napoleon vs. The Turk:
  • “Napoleon tries to cheat and then a third time and then the Turk shakes his head and sweeps all the pieces off the board and he's like, that's it.” (Dana, 53:15)
• Edgar Allan Poe, proto-detective:
  • “Edgar Allan Poe writes this famous essay explaining how he thinks it works… ‘you never see that Schlumberger guy in the same place as the Turk.’” (Dana, 73:32)
• On Philosophy & AI:
  • “A computer can say, if a piece moves here, then, like, statistically, I should move my piece here. But does that mean it, like, understands?” (Dana, 88:56)
  • “Isn’t the act of computing what the best chess move is—that is what chess is. Regardless of the outcome.” (Lizzy, 90:17)

Timestamps for Important Segments

• Introduction & Chess Context: 03:09–05:07
• Automata Hype & Historical Background: 06:47–11:48
• Kempelen's Life & The Court Rivalry: 11:48–17:21
• Mechanics of The Turk & the Cabinet Trick: 19:36–26:12
• European Tour, Celebrity Matches (Philidor, Franklin, Napoleon): 35:40–54:04
• American Adventures & Poe’s Analysis: 71:07–75:44
• The Great Reveal (How it Worked): 81:09–84:43
• Philosophical Discussion: What is "Thinking"? AI Parallels: 86:22–91:05

Tone & Style

The episode is fast-paced, witty, and filled with asides drawing connections between historical hoaxes and the quirks of present-day technology, pop culture, and philosophical debates. Dana’s nerdy enthusiasm and Lizzy’s irreverent humor keep the subject light, even as they discuss serious topics like technological fraud, credulity, and the ongoing tension between illusion and reality.

Conclusion

The story of The Mechanical Turk stands as a multilayered parable about the intersection of technology, showmanship, and belief, demonstrating that the desire to be amazed—and the tendency to believe in the impossible—are perennial human traits. The episode ends with a discussion about whether current advances in AI are truly any less reliant on misdirection and wishful thinking than the Turk itself, making the story both a quirky historical curiosity and a lens on contemporary tech culture.

To quote the hosts’ closing thoughts:

• Lizzy: "I think they are playing chess. I don’t know if they’re thinking." (91:13)
• Dana: “That’s our show. That’s the decade-spanning story of the Mechanical Turk.” (92:20)