My all-encompassing Westworld theory
Spoilers, obviously. I'm not going to explain the show. You should watch it.
Here's my thinking about Westworld.
Everyone is a robot. Everyone in the show. Everyone we see. All robots. Ford. Bernard. Everyone.
This only came to me after the big reveal in episode 7 that Bernard is a robot. This matters because he is responsible for programming, debugging and updating the hosts i.e. other robots. This means that the AI tech in the show has reached a point where it is capable of creating and upgrading itself, or others like it.
So we're in a world either without humans or where humans simply aren't significant. Maybe we died out, or the robots killed us, or we've just shrunk to an insignificant level. The why does't matter for my theory.
So why Westworld as a place and activity? Well, these robots were originally designed and created by humans. The AI that drives them was designed to mimic human thought. So it shouldn't be a shock that even long after they no longer needed human input, they retain human mental characteristics, which include play.
Humans play, and so do other animals. Children play just about all the time they can. And a lot of that play relates to learning, directly or indirectly. Motor skills, social skills, even language and number in some games: play helps learning. But it's also just fun. Fun feels good. So does sex, and we'll return to that later. Humans also invest a lot of time and energy in rituals. Some of these are religious, some purely social, some relate to play (think sports, which have loads of rituals for both players and spectators).
So it shouldn't come as a shock that AIs originally developed to mimic human thought started to take on these characteristics. We teach computers to play chess to prove they can follow rules. But we're also teaching them to play strategy games https://www.technologyreview.com/s/602796/starcraft-will-become-the-next-big-playground-for-ai/ so show how they learn. So the AI plays to learn. But maybe along the line it also develops a sense of fun. The humans don't discourage this: fun – enjoyment – helps humans learn, so why not AIs? And so a sense of pleasure also comes to the AI mind. It feels good.
Back to Westworld. In my scenario, we have – broadly speaking – three categories, each with their own internal hierarchies. We have the hosts, who we – the viewers – know are robots. That's the point of the show. And we have the staff at Westworld. And we now know that at least one of those is a robot. So why not others? Finally, we have the guests. We thought those were humans. But why not let them be robots? We've already established that it's possible that early human-AI interactions – back when we were in charge – could have left the AI with a sense of fun, or even a need for fun. Come to Westworld, and play at being a human, in a world populated by robots. It's fun. Then go back to running Skynet or whatever you do in the real, robot world.
As an aside, there are two breakthrough technologies: the hardware and the software. The two are independent. Maybe you're an AI that spends its time running a robot production line at the bottom of the ocean. Wouldn't your idea of peak fun be not only doing something different, but also doing it in a different physical form? So maybe all the guests are given their human form when they enter the park – we see them picking out clothes, so why not bodies at an earlier stage?
The host robots are, well, just robots. Maybe the park is a testing ground for new AI developments. Or these are old models that nobody minds wrecking. Or it's a punishment.
In the middle are the staff. We know Bernard is a robot in a senior position of considerable responsibility. And the rest? There are two possibilities. First is that this is also fun for some AIs, the robot equivalent of SImCity or Theme Park Tycoon. Some robots want to play first person shooters, some want to play a sim. If humans have personalities and different tastes, why not AIs?
Or it could again be some sort of testing ground, or punishment. We know from Maeve's experience that each AI has a range of characteristics that can be changed on the fly. We also know that there are different types of “intelligence” in that mix. Felix and the other techs are clearly very smart in some areas, but too dumb to spot when they are being played by Maeve. Maybe being a tech is either a recovery period for an overworked AI, or a punishment, or even a holiday: stop worrying and just spend time as a drone. Different strokes for different artificial folks. Look, if I had all the answers I'd be writing season 2, and I'm not.
Westworld is clearly a huge place – you can travel by horse for days and then by train for hours before you even reach the edge of the mapped territory. That suggests a huge perimeter fence, somewhere in the southwestern United States (more specifically, close to Monument Valley). Now, I've driven across that landscape and it's beautiful and very sparsely populated, but it isn't empty. There are people, and roads, and buildings. None of which we see in the park. If there were a lot of humans living nearby, you'd need a Berlin wall/Korean DMZ level of security around the outside to keep them out. That's another big expense. It’s far simpler if there are no humans nearby. Or at all.
[Another possibility is that all of this is in software: it's just a sandbox game for AIs to challenge each other, or just have fun, and doesn't exist at all in meatspace. My point still stands.]
So what about Bernard killing Theresa? Well, her holiday could be as a corporate spy, and she's just been killed by the level boss. She'll respawn and try again (or not, if she's in a roguelike game).
And what about the extremely well-argued “timeline” argument that the Man in Black and William are the same person 30 years apart, and we're watching two timelines? (Because the hosts don't age and the sets don't change, we have no visual clues to determine the passage of years.) Well, maybe again we're looking at the same AI choosing two different bodies during repeat visits to the park, the older body reflecting its greater experience.
Remember also that in the original film there were other worlds – Roman and Medieval – so in this theory we could have those and others. Maybe there's a WW2 world, where some are playing Call of Duty type games while others are playing real-time strategy as generals on the eastern front.
Also, consider this. When the techs freeze the robots to come in and pick up a robot, there's never any sign of a “near miss” from a guest. Maybe they are frozen too, or restricted to a path that allows the techs to pick up the robot: that could be a game for techs! Or programmed to not see the techs. Anything to avoid breaking the illusion.
I don't know if the “AI breakdowns” that have driven the plot in season 1 are either real in the this all-robot universe, or just another game for robots playing techs and executives to deal with. I hope it's the former.
Finally, the robots have sex with other robots because once you've created the hardware for both male and female sexbots (initially for human use), it's arguably easier to teach them to enjoy it than to fake it. Or in faking they learn to enjoy it, or even just go on faking even with another robot. Either way, it's fun, and these bots have discovered the benefit and joy of fun, or give the appearance of having fun. All of them. Because they are all robots.
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