Long before Silicon Valley, the Greeks built a killer robot out of bronze. This episode asks the question that's been quietly running under human culture for 3,000 years: why do we keep trying to build something in our own image?

Dave and Kelly are joined by USA Today bestselling author Natalie G. Owens (Natalie Guillaumier) for a proper nerd-out on Talos, the bronze automaton said to have patrolled the coastline of Crete, and the Golem, the Jewish folklore figure summoned into obedience through words rather than craft. Two very different ideas about creation, control and what happens when the thing you've made follows your instructions in ways you didn't intend.

In this full podcast episode:

- Was Talos actually a robot, or are we retrofitting the word onto mythology?

- Why does a god like Hephaestus need automated servants?

- Talos's spiritual descendants: Terminator, Transformers, the Iron Giant and every oversized videogame boss

- Golems, obedience and the books that introduced a generation to the idea

- Would you rather be protected by Talos or a Golem?

- How Chinese, Islamic and other traditions were building and imagining automata at the same time

- Natalie discusses writing artificial beings in urban fantasy, paranormal romance and beyond

This isn't another AI podcast about ChatGPT and prompt engineering. It's about the myths, stories and cultural instincts that got us thinking about artificial life millennia before we could build it.

Inspired by our book, Myth-Made Machines: The Stories Behind Artificial Intelligence by Dave Bradley and Kelly Vero (Bloomsbury, published 3rd September 2026): https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/mythmade-machines-9798216370680/

Cover art is “The Death of Talos depicted on a column krater (Museo Archeologico Nazionale del Sannio Caudino, Montesarchio)” by ArchaiOptix - Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=93841648