Early modern writers had much to say about how humans and other animals compared to machines. René Descartes (1596–1650) argued that an automaton could never convincingly impersonate human intelligence, however lifelike it seemed. To set the stage, I will briefly discuss Descartes’ imitation game, along with its philosophical and theological motivations. I will then move on to another imitation game conceived of by Nicolas Filleau de la Chaise (1631–1688), who asked whether a human could successfully imitate a machine. Finally, I will reflect on how Thomas Hobbes (1588–1679) portrayed the mechanical intelligence of the state as a safeguard against the deceptions of its enemies.
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