 Mechanical men and artificial beings appear in Greek myths , such as the golden robots of <unk> and <unk> 's <unk> . In the Middle Ages , there were rumors of secret mystical or <unk> means of placing mind into matter , such as <unk> ibn <unk> 's <unk> , <unk> ' <unk> and Rabbi Judah <unk> 's <unk> . By the 19th century , ideas about artificial men and thinking machines were developed in fiction , as in Mary Shelley 's <unk> or Karel <unk> 's <unk> ( <unk> 's Universal <unk> ) , and speculation , such as Samuel Butler 's " Darwin among the Machines . " AI has continued to be an important element of science fiction into the present . 
