[MrForbes]

Might be off topic a bit, but consider the carburetor, vs electronic fuel injection. The carburetor is a relatively simple mechanical device that uses some pretty basic principles to meter fuel quite accurately under many different operating conditions. EFI uses a computer, several sensors, several actuators, a sort of complicated program, and calibrated lookup tables to do the same job.

I doubt either is really a robot, but the analog mechanical device is my favorite if I'm the one paying for and maintaining the thing.