Westworld (HBO/Sky Atlantic) [** Spoilers **]

jcsoulinger

Sad Professor wrote: »

I find Dolores, Teddy and Maeve to be sympathetic and relatable characters. The fact that they are machines is irrelevant. Being stuck in a loop, feeling that there's something wrong with your world, not knowing who you are, etc, are very human experiences. The more we learn about Bernard and the trauma that has shaped him the more I like him as well.

AI characters always seem to be a problem for audiences, though. I seemed to be one of the few viewers able to see Eva's perspective in Ex Machina. Probably one of the reasons why I'm really enjoying this show is the way it embraces the perspective of the robots.

Those characters are not truly AI yet tho, although Dolores seems to be very close to making the transition, because of this my sympathies for them are dulled compared to the humans or those who we currently perceive to be humans.

I would have thought most people would have been sympathetic to Eva in Ex Machina, especially when the Oscar Issac character was such a dick, Her

callous nature only becomes clear at the end

I will say that most people fear conscious robots, and with good reason.
It's funny how the more human like the robots are the more sinister they appear, like there trying to deceive us or something.

Mc Love

Ford is a cold b*stard! I'd say it took all of his strength for Bernard not to hit him.

stesaurus

Mc Love wrote: »

Ford is a cold b*stard! I'd say it took all of his strength for Bernard not to hit him.

I think that's an act

Sad Professor

jcsoulinger wrote: »

Those characters are not truly AI yet tho, although Dolores seems to be very close to making the transition, because of this my sympathies for them are dulled compared to the humans or those who we currently perceive to be humans.

The hosts are capable of perception and improvisation, so I think they are AI and have been from almost the beginning of the park, they just aren't conscious or self-aware yet. Or at least not as far as Ford is concerned, though I suspect he may know the truth and is suppressing it.

I think the bicameral mind stuff will be a big part of the rest of the season, particularly the religious aspect of it. Dolores is hearing a voice in her head that is her telling her to go off-script. The question is, is this voice her own inner voice or that of an external manipulator? If it's the former then she's developing consciousness, if it's the latter then she's still just a puppet.

It's rather convenient that Ford came up with storyline involving religion and crazies like Wyatt who believe God is talking to them just as these malfunctions started happening. He also pulled Teddy away from Dolores allowing her to run off.

What's this bicameral stuff people keep mentioning? What's it go to do with religion?

I'll try my friend google :pac:

errlloyd

[Deleted User] wrote: »

I'll try my friend google :pac:

The only time I'd ever heard the word bicameral before this was referring to a government with an upper and lower house of parliament.

But it seems to refer to a being harboring the belief there is a higher power or creator.

Edit. I'm incorrect. It refers to the belief there are two chambers in the brain. Google will explain better than I.

Sad Professor

Deleted User wrote: »

What's this bicameral stuff people keep mentioning? What's it go to do with religion?

Basically the (crazy but kinda brilliant) theory goes that human beings only achieved consciousness 3,000 years ago. And before that one side of their brain told the other side of their brain what to do via a commanding voice which they interpreted as the voice of the gods. Hence religion. Eventually both sides of the brain merged and this internal voice was recognised for what it was (their own internal voice or thoughts) and the "gods" went away. Thus modern religions which are largely defined by the absence of God and the need for faith in his existence, prompting a lot of existential issues. According to the theory, schizophrenia and psychosis are leftovers of this prior state. It should be noted that according to this theory, "consciousness" is very narrowly defined as a particular kind of self-aware introspection which earlier humans were not capable of.

gryfothegreat

My biggest issue with the show so far is Ford. His writing isn't consistent - he seems to change his attitude towards his creations every episode. It might have to do with the fact that they reshot and rewrote the pilot, but it could just be the usual Nolan inconsistent writing. The idea of this kindly old man with a sinister underlying God complex is compelling, but difficult to pull off believably.

The scene with Bernard and his wife was a low point of the show so far. It was clunky and unbelievable and a waste of Gina Torres. If their son has been dead for as long as was implied, surely they would have had that conversation long ago? It lends credence to the 'Bernard is an AI' theory.

As a computer engineer and nerd, I love the AI robot aspect of the show. The lads getting stuck in a loop when they can't get firewood, Dolores using her knowledge of past loops to escape alive, and the stray destroying his head - which Stubbs says contains his CPU - so they can't diagnose what his issue was were all really interesting.

I wish people would stop going on about guests shooting guests and the different areas of the park and how people would get bored quickly. There's a certain amount of suspension of belief you need to watch sci-fi; nitpicking just ruins the experience.

ManOfMystery

gryfothegreat wrote: »

My biggest issue with the show so far is Ford. His writing isn't consistent - he seems to change his attitude towards his creations every episode. It might have to do with the fact that they reshot and rewrote the pilot, but it could just be the usual Nolan inconsistent writing. The idea of this kindly old man with a sinister underlying God complex is compelling, but difficult to pull off believably.

I have a theory (amongst 1000 others) that the entire park is one huge experiment into achieving human immortality by developing ageless synthetic bodies, using the recreational angle as a facade and to help fund it. Basic AI has been developed in the hosts to test whether human aspects of emotion and feeling can be believably simulated in the host bodies, and an unexpected side effect has been the development of a rudimentary consciousness or sentience among the hosts.

If right, then I believe Ford's inconsistency is due in part to him being pulled in different directions by his responsibilities as the head of the park and a scientist, and his personal feelings towards the beings he has had a huge hand in creating.

gryfothegreat

ManOfMystery wrote: »

I have a theory (amongst 1000 others) that the entire park is one huge experiment into achieving human immortality by developing ageless synthetic bodies, using the recreational angle as a facade and to help fund it. Basic AI has been developed in the hosts to test whether human aspects of emotion and feeling can be believably simulated in the host bodies, and an unexpected side effect has been the development of a rudimentary consciousness or sentience among the hosts.

If right, then I believe Ford's inconsistency is due in part to him being pulled in different directions by his responsibilities as the head of the park and a scientist, and his personal feelings towards the beings he has had a huge hand in creating.

That's an interesting idea from a Watsonian perspective, but I'm more comfortable with the Doylist one - that the rewrite messed the continuity of his character arc up. Ah well, there's still seven hours to go

Sad Professor

I like the fountain of youth idea. As sinister uses for hosts go, it would bring them into conflict with humans in a very fundamental way. But I'm not mad about the idea of humans transferring their consciousness into robots. And I don't think a wild west theme park would be the best testing ground for this.

I think it would be more thematically fitting if the company's real plan is to sell the hosts to rich guys to use as their personal slaves. A sick and twisted plan that would totally depend on the hosts not being self-aware. If it were to get out that even one of them had developed consciousness, it's all over. Which is why I think any potential revolt, even by a few hosts, will be violently suppressed and covered up. Any technicians who disagrees will end up dead like Arnold.

Re: Ford, I think there's been a change in him since the first episode. When we first meet him he's got a lot on his mind. In episode 2 he says "he's strayed from the path he's supposed to be on". That episode ends with him doing something he apparently hadn't done in years: rejecting a storyline in favour of his own. And in episode 3 he's on a mission, changing storylines and manipulating events in a ruthless manner. Maybe for most of the park's existence Ford was the kindly creator who sought to protect his children, but now if they are to learn to survive he must become the devil.

irishash

I will try to keep this theory as short as I can, but it wont be easy.
Basic theory is this William (Jimmy Simpson) and the Man in Black are the same person, albeit separated by 30 years. We are all making the assumption that all characters are interacting in the same time period. But since the hosts do not age, and have their character loops, we can never be sure what time period it is (the past, the present), unless the administrators reference it directly.

Think about this: Has William or his friend/future brother in law interacted with any other character in the show that we know is part of the present, or been referenced by any other character in the present? If you were to age William s character about 30 years, he would be the same age and build as the Man in Black. He has noticed Dolores in his game and they had a moment. The Man in Black is very interested in Dolores as well.

The other thing that interests me is how William and his friend arrive in the park. They are the only guests we have seen arriving in the real world . They arrive at a train platform where hosts are waiting to guide them to the park. Now notice the logo:





Very different to the logo we see later:




Also in the first and last episodes we see old, disused parts of the admin building. Part that have been abandoned. These parts have escalators and a layout similar to the area William arrived to in episode 2. Also in the last ep, when the head security guard and the designer go up in the lift, is it only me or did that area look a lot like the train platform William arrived onto?

So my theory is that the William scenes are from 30 years ago, just before the incident that closed the park for a short time. It has since re-opened under new management with a VERY close eye on the hosts (hence why the security guard is so protective) but there are still issues. Whatever happened has changed William, so much so that he is looking for a way to destroy the park and hurt Dolores a lot (he talks about all the times he has killed her) as maybe she was a large part of the "incident". Also, as somebody mentioned, maybe he is the only survivor from the incident and to keep his mouth shut he is allowed unlimited access to the park, along with cash.

We are watching a remake and a sequel of WestWorld (the movie) at the same time.

gryfothegreat

Didn't Dolores meeting William at the end of ep 3 debunk that theory?

errlloyd

I still believe that we might be seeing two different points in the timeline, but Dolores bumping into William disproves that particular one. Remember Dolores is fleeing have shot the bandit, she shot the bandit when she saw an image of the Man in Black. So her bumping into William has to be after her meeting the Man in Black in episode 1.

irishash

errlloyd wrote: »

I still believe that we might be seeing two different points in the timeline, but Dolores bumping into William disproves that particular one. Remember Dolores is fleeing have shot the bandit, she shot the bandit when she saw an image of the Man in Black. So her bumping into William has to be after her meeting the Man in Black in episode 1.

It only disproves it if you can prove that the Dolores arriving at the camp site of William and his friend is as a direct consequence of what happened at the farm house. We cannot even be sure it is the same timeline.
The next episode will debunk this for good, or go towards proving it a bit more.

irishash

Here is the admin building map:

Notice the "disused facilities" above the cold storage and underneath the monorail terminal. It is quite a large area to abandon.

errlloyd

From the interior shot the old disused facilities looked like they were part of an older park?

kumate_champ07

readyletsgo wrote: »

Have to disagree there. I thought first 2 episodes were slow and boring, bad acting, story very predicable. Everyone banging on how great it was, and I was meh, but this episode caught my interest, so I'll keep watching for a few more episodes.

the robots?



I want to see more of the world outside the park, to see what the cities are like, where poor people live, what people do for entertainment besides play cowboys.

PhiloCypher

Mc Love wrote: »

Ford is a cold b*stard! I'd say it took all of his strength for Bernard not to hit him.

I thought this too at first . His behaviour seemed to be at odds with the picture of Ford I'd built up in my head as this eccentric John Hammond(Jurassic Park) figure, but with the revelation that he had had a partner in creation , and that this partner had died mysteriously while pursuing genuine sentience for the robots, its entirely conceivable to me that since that date Ford has towed the company line in public while privately fostering Robot Sentience with things like the "reveries" which allow the robots to tap into their memories. Also Fords wistful discussion with Bernard on how humans have "slipped evolutions leash" suggest that far from seeing the Hosts as nothing but automatons he see's them as an opportunity to see evolution at work. Just my theory anyway.


Person of Interest

Anyone else seeing the parallels between Ford and Finch in their treatment of AI albeit for different reasons . Finch shackled his AI by wiping its memory every 12(or was it 24) hours so it wouldn't become dangerous . Ford wipes his Robots minds every 24 hours because as he puts it "if we are going to let them be abused, the very least we can do is make them forget".

reece289

Both the robot hear a voice, Arnold. The Partner who 'dies' in what they called an accident. Arnold was very very careful according to Ford.
Did he download his mind to become the bootstrap to his children?

Interesting that the voice commands are the only thing they kept from the experiment that Arnold started.

expectationlost

i had kinda imagined at first that any looping story would be based over a atleast a week, or how ever long an average guest stay would be but its seems to be a looping every day if their storyline doesn't get activated.

ManOfMystery

expectationlost wrote: »

i had kinda imagined at first that any looping story would be based over a atleast a week, or how ever long an average guest stay would be but its seems to be a looping every day if their storyline doesn't get activated.

I really like how they're doing this and as an earlier poster mentioned, if you work in IT (like myself and many others here) it's kinda fascinating as you can parallel all of this with how software works and essentially runs in loops.

The only issue is that the hosts are so realistic and human-like that it's easy to become slightly frustrated at why they repeat the same behaviour over and over, forgetting at times that they're essentially just in a software loop and pretty much unable to consider options outside of it - well, at least not until recently, with some of them like Dolores starting to realise they can think outside the box.

Teddy is a prime example of this, looking blankly at Dolores when she asks him to run away with her - physically and mentally unable to commit to any timeframe other than 'some day'. His programming simply won't allow for it.

If they actually looked more like robots it would be easier to sell, ironically.

Sad Professor

ManOfMystery wrote: »

I really like how they're doing this and as an earlier poster mentioned, if you work in IT (like myself and many others here) it's kinda fascinating as you can parallel all of this with how software works and essentially runs in loops.

The only issue is that the hosts are so realistic and human-like that it's easy to become slightly frustrated at why they repeat the same behaviour over and over, forgetting at times that they're essentially just in a software loop and pretty much unable to consider options outside of it - well, at least not until recently, with some of them like Dolores starting to realise they can think outside the box.

Teddy is a prime example of this, looking blankly at Dolores when she asks him to run away with her - physically and mentally unable to commit to any timeframe other than 'some day'. His programming simply won't allow for it.

If they actually looked more like robots it would be easier to sell, ironically.

I'm fairness, if you asked a human in real life to abandon their "loop", i.e. their daily existence, job, whatever, they'd probably respond the same way with some rubbish about "someday" when really their social programming won't let them.

Sad Professor

Sad Professor wrote: »

I'm fairness, if you asked a human in real life to abandon their "loop", i.e. their daily existence, job, whatever, they'd probably respond the same way with some rubbish about "someday" when really their social programming won't let them.

The number of times Ive said "someday" referring to something I'd like to do, but have no specific plans to do it. People do it all the time. "Someday we should go on a picnic", "Someday we should eat in that new restaurant", "someday I'd like to fly a plane" etc etc.

Akrasia

Oafley Jones wrote: »

Found my attention waning throughout it. I think there some significant structural issues with the overall premise. I just can't for the life of me see where they're going to get the five seasons.

My big fear going into this is that we'd end up with some sorta Lost structure. Where every week we'd be introduced to a new guest, where they'd spend half the episode resolving some backstory rather than moving the overall plot on. McPoyle lasting more than two episodes still doesn't alleviate this worry because they're practically screaming that this is some sort of therapy for him.

I'm completely unengaged from the "quest" sections. There's nothing really at stake here, so where's the suspense. Sure things will go further wrong, guests will be killed by rogue hosts eventually, but how long can you drag out the escalating failure till that.

Also finding the intimate moments between the hosts odd. They're supposed to make us empathise with their plight, for us to grant them some humanity but it's undercut by the constant diagnostics sequences.

The plot is actually moving a lot faster than I expected. Deloras is essentially a fugitive now, I can't see her having any more heart to hearts with bernard at least not with the same power dynamic. I think the next time they meet, Deloras will be in control. or else a prisoner)

HiGlo

irishash wrote: »

I will try to keep this theory as short as I can, but it wont be easy.
Basic theory is this William (Jimmy Simpson) and the Man in Black are the same person, albeit separated by 30 years. We are all making the assumption that all characters are interacting in the same time period. But since the hosts do not age, and have their character loops, we can never be sure what time period it is (the past, the present), unless the administrators reference it directly.

Think about this: Has William or his friend/future brother in law interacted with any other character in the show that we know is part of the present, or been referenced by any other character in the present? If you were to age William s character about 30 years, he would be the same age and build as the Man in Black. He has noticed Dolores in his game and they had a moment. The Man in Black is very interested in Dolores as well.

The other thing that interests me is how William and his friend arrive in the park. They are the only guests we have seen arriving in the real world . They arrive at a train platform where hosts are waiting to guide them to the park. Now notice the logo:

Very different to the logo we see later:

Also in the first and last episodes we see old, disused parts of the admin building. Part that have been abandoned. These parts have escalators and a layout similar to the area William arrived to in episode 2. Also in the last ep, when the head security guard and the designer go up in the lift, is it only me or did that area look a lot like the train platform William arrived onto?

So my theory is that the William scenes are from 30 years ago, just before the incident that closed the park for a short time. It has since re-opened under new management with a VERY close eye on the hosts (hence why the security guard is so protective) but there are still issues. Whatever happened has changed William, so much so that he is looking for a way to destroy the park and hurt Dolores a lot (he talks about all the times he has killed her) as maybe she was a large part of the "incident". Also, as somebody mentioned, maybe he is the only survivor from the incident and to keep his mouth shut he is allowed unlimited access to the park, along with cash.

We are watching a remake and a sequel of WestWorld (the movie) at the same time.

Great theory... Works for me

I've been guilty of it myself, but I really hope the program doesnt constantly get compared to Lost. The only thing it has in common with Lost is the involvement of Bad Robot.

expectationlost

ManOfMystery wrote: »

I really like how they're doing this and as an earlier poster mentioned, if you work in IT (like myself and many others here) it's kinda fascinating as you can parallel all of this with how software works and essentially runs in loops.

The only issue is that the hosts are so realistic and human-like that it's easy to become slightly frustrated at why they repeat the same behaviour over and over, forgetting at times that they're essentially just in a software loop and pretty much unable to consider options outside of it - well, at least not until recently, with some of them like Dolores starting to realise they can think outside the box.

Teddy is a prime example of this, looking blankly at Dolores when she asks him to run away with her - physically and mentally unable to commit to any timeframe other than 'some day'. His programming simply won't allow for it.

If they actually looked more like robots it would be easier to sell, ironically.

im not surprised that they are looping just waiting for somebody to last longer then a day, Teddy (and Delores) story are now heading into the night, so will they be back in their beds by 6am? ready to wake again?

expectationlost

expectationlost wrote: »

im not surprised that they are looping just waiting for somebody to last longer then a day, Teddy (and Delores) story are now heading into the night, so will they be back in their beds by 6am? ready to wake again?

I dont think so. What happens if you hire one of the ladies in the Saloon, pay for a couple of hours and it happens to be around midnight? You'd be pretty pi$$ed if half way through she rebooted and forgot your transaction. I think the memory wiping/rebooting/waking up in their own bed happens, after they have finished interacting with a guest. Now that Delores has run into William and his brother in law, she will stay online until they stop interacting.

I mean, a guest could meet Delores when he or she gets off the train and end up going on a big adventure with her spanning multiple days. But once the guest gets back on the train and goes home, Delores would then go and reboot, wipe her memory and start her loop all over again.

I think Delores is going to remember what shes done for the foreseeable.