The Golem of Prague

There is an interesting piece of Jewish folklore that predates Mary Shelley's Frankenstein with respect to a critical reflection on the role of technology in a human context:
A rabbi in the Jewish ghetto in Prague was so overwhelmed in relieving the suffering of his charges that he invented an automaton that, when he placed the Shem (name of G-d inscribed on a stone) in its forehead, it set about assisting with laborious chores such as making voluminous quantities of porridge. The Golem had the capacity to bear the likeness of things but never the substance—one could, only in the most vicarious sense, experience the taste of exotic foods and sweets, but could never be nourished by its images and deceptions. A truculent young boy dared enter the rabbi’s quarters on the Sabbath so that he might enjoy all that the Golem could conjure, however, he lacked the knowledge to make it stop and the Golem produced such a prodigious quantity that all of Prague drowned in a sea of porridge!