Westworld is Great, but is it the Future?
I’ll have to admit that I came into Westworld with very low expectations. The first trailer I saw made the show seem like a campy western with elements of science fiction rolled in. It looked like it would take place in a world where some event caused modern technology to fail and threw everyone back into the wild west era. I’m glad that I gave the show a chance, we’re only three episodes in, but it’s shaping up to be one of the best dramas that I’ve seen in a while. There are layers upon layers to the storyline and enough content for nerds like me. The show touches on artificial intelligence, philosophy, conflict, and our place in the world. I leave every episode asking if this could really be the future.
Hardware
The hosts are arguably the stars of Westworld, they’re presented as highly sophisticated robotic beings that give the guests an opportunity to fully embrace parts of their personality that they may have to hide in the real world. During the first few episodes we’ve started to learn about the hosts, seen them in various states of disrepair, and learned about the different versions and how they’ve “evolved”. The operators of Westworld have built humanoid hosts along with horses, snakes, and other animals; though we’re really only learned much about the humanoid hosts.
Software
The hosts in Westworld are loaded with software and configured to have specific personality traits which can be updated as needed. The personality traits feel a little like environment variables on a web server, they alter the perception and behavior in subtle ways. Narratives are loaded into the configured environments and give the hosts a backstory, motivations, and behavioral traits. It’s been interesting to watch how the changes have massive impact on how the hosts behave and how they interact with one another. Over the first few episodes a software update that allows hosts to have some limited long-term memories has been causing them to act out as they’re now fully aware of the ways in which guests and other hosts have been taking advantage of them.
User Experience
It has been interesting to see the relationships that develop between hosts and guests, hosts and park employees, and especially between the hosts themselves. The small tweaks to personality and changing narratives combine to produce emergent behaviors that are much more complex than could be fully planned. We’ve gotten a glimpse at the ways in which hosts are limited by their programming in order to provide a fun, but safe, experience for the park guests; and seen how those safety mechanisms can break down.
The ways in which hosts interact with humans gives a peek into the what the future of human-computer interaction could look like, but I wonder if that’s really the future. If we are able to simulate consciousness do we have a duty to treat the simulations ethically, or is suffering only deemed bad when inflicted on humans?
