Imagine a world without a single computer, database, or machine learning algorithm. Now, imagine that in this world, rulers knew the exact number of their subjects, how much grain was harvested in each district, how many soldiers could be drafted into the army, and how much tax to collect from each household. Sounds like science fiction? But this was the reality of antiquity. And today, when we talk about artificial intelligence and automation, it’s worth considering: humanity’s first “neural networks” appeared long before electricity.