Robot Carving Moguls Behind Koons, Lin Works Face Off in Tuscany

Sai Baba lay on his back in the cold sunlight on the mountain, his expression untroubled by the four-and-a-half-ton steel robot drilling at his head. The machine buzzed away in a mist of water and atomized stone. Its arm could move up and down and in and out. It could twist, tilt and spin its tool. Altogether it could work along nine axes—an impressive range of motion. Through the glass walls of the factory behind me, I saw other robots toiling, but this was the one Giacomo Massari had brought me up to look at.

Sai Baba was an Indian sage who ...