I'm Japanese, and this is the first I've heard of Gakutensoku. If you asked people in Japan for an old Japanese "robot", I think most would come up with this tea-carrying karakuri doll.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakuri_puppet
That one predates the word "robot" entirely. The design is documented in a 1796 book called "Karakuri Zui", so Edo period, shoguns still in charge.
I'm Japanese, and this is the first I've heard of Gakutensoku. If you asked people in Japan for an old Japanese "robot", I think most would come up with this tea-carrying karakuri doll. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karakuri_puppet
That one predates the word "robot" entirely. The design is documented in a 1796 book called "Karakuri Zui", so Edo period, shoguns still in charge.
Yeah, I was about to object that this is essentially a large automaton of which there are tons of earlier examples from Japan.
Automaton
The Wikipedia page doesn't say: what happened to this robot?
> the details of its disappearance are unknown
A mystery! Someone will know...
I can find references to:
* Appearance in Korea at an expo (1928, 1929?): https://www.kci.go.kr/kciportal/landing/article.kci?arti_id=...
* The creator writing about it in 1931 (reference 10 on the same page)
Shanghai but uncertain date.
Was it dismantled in either Korea or China, or shipped back and dismantled, or destroyed?
I like to think he's in some wealthy parlor somewhere, sequestered away, bringing mirth and humanity to an elite few who need it most of all.