The Uncanny Automaton: From Hoffmann to Artificial Intelligence

This study examines the figure of the automaton and the robot as a site of intersection between the human and the technological, between reality and simulation, through the lens of Sigmund Freud’s concept of das Unheimliche (“the uncanny”). Employing close reading, comparative literary analysis, and conceptual juxtaposition with contemporary technological phenomena, the investigation begins with E. T. A. Hoffmann’s novella “The Sandman“ (1816) and his story “Automata” (1814), where childhood trauma, the doppelgänger, and mechanical imitation produce the first modern literary image of the uncanny. Special attention is given to musical automata as a defence of human creativity against mechanisation. The transformation of this figure is traced through Karel Čapekʼs “R.U.R.” (1920) and Isaac Asimov’s “I, Robot” (1950). Contemporary artificial intelligence (AI) systems are compared to the literary automata, demonstrating that the uncanny is not historically bounded but evolves in tandem with technological development, persisting as a fundamental marker of the anxiety generated by the simulation of human subjectivity.