***spoiler alert***
Westworld was a 1973 sci-fi movie about a resort which uses robots to provide fantasies for indulgent guests. Yul Brenner, sick and tired of raking in millions acting in blockbusters such as The Ten Commandments, The King and I and The Magnificent Seven, plays a robot gunslinger who gets infected by a computer virus and starts killing the guests. The concept of a computer virus was considered ridiculous at the time but due to Yul’s Russian heritage he is, of course, now being held directly responsible for the Wikileak email disclosures of Hillary Clinton. Anyways, the owners of the resort are completely appalled at the potential bad press and loss of revenue.
Westworld, revived as an HBO series, has evolved from the primitive flesh covered titanium of Terminator to the new and improved 3D printing. But who is paying for all this? There are three stakeholders involved; the guests, the staff and the owners. The guests pay $40K/day which is almost double what Disney World costs but remember it includes meals and unlimited sex. The staff seems at least as happy as any cast members I’ve seen at Six Flags and I bet they get a decent 401K package as well. As for the owners… in Episode 1 it is disclosed that even at those prices Westworld could never possibly turn a profit but that owners simply don’t care. OMG who does that? Who invests untold billions on crazy projects with no clear benefits? Who spends unlimited fortunes as if it isn’t even theirs?! Who, I ask you—who does that?
The violence, while gratuitous, is actually mostly implied. Thankfully, one of the two founders (the live one *wink* *wink*) played by Anthony Hopkins, uses a scalpel to demonstrate that the hosts feel no pain and no shame. Whew. Yeah, I know. I thought he was going for the brain again too but no not this time.
The concept of the “bicameral mind” is presented. This is new to me: Bicameralism (the philosophy of “two-chamberedness”) is a hypothesis in psychology that argues that the human mind once assumed a state in which cognitive functions were divided between one part of the brain which appears to be “speaking”, and a second part which listens and obeys—a bicameral mind. Ruh roh… If this is how consciousness starts then isn’t there some sort of possibility, a risk, a danger in fact that there are actually four stakeholders and the fourth set is hiding in plain site?
Excerpt:
Web developer to security guard (checking his gun before the search for a stray host): “You know, if you wanted to play cowboy you could’ve just used your employee discount”.
Security guard: ”The only thing that’s stopping the hosts from hacking us to pieces is one line of your code”.
Wait! Wait! I can write that line of code:
if rhb eq “yes” then perform slightly_miss_target else perform kill
Voila! Perfectly simple straightforward line of code with no potential problems whatsoever. Consider yourself welcome. Now the only potential problems are with the hosts computer failing or the sensors failing and we all know THAT can never happen. BTW did I mention I had to replace two sensors and the electronic ABS module on my car last week. Ironic I know.
Getting back to my awesome one line coding ability I just hope nobody ever updates any of the other software on them there hosts. I mean I would hate to think what would happen if earlier in the program it is determined the the target in question is indeed an Real Human Being. “Oh, it’s an RHB? Swell. I’ll just set the rhb variable to “Yes” “. That’s right, “Yes” does not equal “yes” so slightly_miss_target does not happen.
Much finger pointing and scrubbing ensues.
All cynicism aside I find this series finely crafted and thought provoking. You may find another “technology gone crazy” just too silly and preposterous to consider but consider this… self driving cars are on the horizon and unless they are made far, far more reliable than a Mustang ABS, a Samsung Galaxy Note7 or a private email server we might end up seeing a lot of finger pointing and scrubbing. For real.
