Westworld (1973) had robots that malfunctioned

[jolshefsky]

I just watched Westworld again the other day with my partner as she had not seen it but was on a 1970s-dystopian kick. I had warned her it just isn't very good overall. And yeah, it's a pretty terrible movie to watch: not only mostly boring, but full of plot issues (e.g. while the guns can't kill a guest, can't the swords in Medieval World?) But given all that, not only is it not some forgotten B-movie, but elevated to something of a cultural touchstone.

It wasn't until a day later that I noticed something: the robots malfunction. That's it. In no way is it even implied that they gain consciousness, only that they malfunction in some unexpected way. Given that this was inspired (purportedly) by Michael Crichton's visit to Pirates of the Carribean at Disney and the animatronic robots there, it makes sense that the robots would be something like a sophisticated thrill-ride, programmed to act like people.

In that, I think a lot of subsequent imitators missed that point. They tried to determine the reason the robots start killing, as if they had agency and self awareness. This leads to the death spiral of "robots are metaphors for slaves" (which is pretty friggin' offensive to actual human beings who are enslaved!) I'd say Blade Runner gets forgiven because the Replicants are biological in nature.

But the real danger, if you will, is that we are creating complicated systems and nobody understands how they work—something mentioned in the movie ("machines designed by machines"). This has become true with modern AI (for lack of a better word) which is composed of many intermediate pseudo-neurons whose direct functions are in no way understood, only that the output looks good.

So rather than get an AI that is self-aware and mad that it is a servant, it's much more likely that, say, a helper bot would think that humans need to drink a gallon of house paint each day. The machine has no context on what reality is or what life is, it's just making decisions that seem to make sense most of the time. Our mistake is thinking they are real. I think this is why Ex Machina resonated—that Ava is this thing that has no evolutionary data to fall back on, only imitating what is effective, and (spoilers-ish) seeking to fulfill her directive to try and escape (I think Nathan tried to make her clever and trick Caleb into helping her try to escape; his hubris that he was smarter and could stop her.)

(And one other aside, the whole wild-west theme of the film seemed so absurd today, as if anyone would want that. But in 1973, that's just 20 or so years after the nostalgic era of westerns in cinema, so it makes sense in context.)

[fisis]

I think Michael Crichton's message is about "YOU CAN'T CONTROL EVERYTHING." just like Jurassic Park.
so robot or T-rex is not that important. but, I'm happy with them(robot, T-rex both of them r cool).

[33cl33]

Indeed (to op)... What I find even more perplexing about the HBO rendition, is that they had it right in season one. Maybe even accidentally? Remember that little line of dialogue from the tech in the basement indicating that Maeve's desire to escape was actually in her programming? That, I assume, Arnold or Dr. Ford had coded the whole "these violent delights..." trigger?

It's like they forgot they wrote that by the time they got to building season 2... And it was one of the most interesting details to me.

[AmosBurton7]

Indeed (to op)... What I find even more perplexing about the HBO rendition, is that they had it right in season one. Maybe even accidentally? Remember that little line of dialogue from the tech in the basement indicating that Maeve's desire to escape was actually in her programming? That, I assume, Arnold or Dr. Ford had coded the whole "these violent delights..." trigger?

It's like they forgot they wrote that by the time they got to building season 2... And it was one of the most interesting details to me.

The Show started in 2016. "#MeToo" dropped in 2017. The entire tone and direction of the show changed.

[jolshefsky]

Was that really 9 years ago?! I'm getting too old for this...