Illustration by Tag Hartman-Simkins / Futurism. Source: Getty Images In 18th century Vienna, the Hungarian engineer and debutant Wolfgang von Kempelen shocked court patrons with a bizarre contraption: a great mechanical box which could seemingly play and even win chess games without any input from a human. Called the “Mechanical Turk,” Kempelen’s device became the talk of high society for decades, and went on to beat famed opponents including Ben Franklin