# Westworld is coming back on HBO **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted, hbomax-wb-dc\ **Created:** [May 26, 2022, 4:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156 "2022-05-26T16:45:57Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 12:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/41 "2022-05-30T12:10:49Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > That’s _no_ different than a person. Then we’re all just machines? You, me, my smartphone? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 12:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/42 "2022-05-30T12:11:55Z")
At that level, yes, we’re all just machines. We’re just machines made of meat (as are the hosts, mostly) > [@Alessan](#): > > The hosts, at least as designed, were nothing more than improved, ambulatory iPhones. I-phones don’t fall in love, like the Ghost Nation leader did. Logic 101: “I-phones are machines. Some machines are sentient. Therefore I-phones are sentient” is terrible logic > [@Alessan](#): > > So I should treat my phone like a human? This ridiculous “then all machines must be sentient” strawman argument didn’t get any traction in the Season 3 thread, I’m not going to rehash it here. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 12:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/43 "2022-05-30T12:13:44Z")
So I should treat my phone like a human? Does it have a right to freedom? To own property? Vote? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 12:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/44 "2022-05-30T12:22:39Z")
Is your argument that humans _aren’t_ just meat machines? Because if you’re coming at this from some position of mysticism, I don’t really want to waste any more time discussing it with you. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 12:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/45 "2022-05-30T12:30:16Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I-phones don’t fall in love, like the Ghost Nation leader did. And the fact that he fell in love without being programmed to was evidence of his emerging sentience, which was the point of the show. > [@MrDibble](#): > > Logic 101: “I-phones are machines. Some machines are sentient. Therefore I-phones are sentient” is terrible logic Except that wasn’t my logic. What I was saying was “iPhones can simulate human behavior. The fact that they simulate human behavior makes the hosts sentient. Therefore, iPhones are sentient.” It’s been years since I’ve taken a course in Logic, I admit, but I don’t think it’s terrible, per se. > [@MrDibble](#): > > This ridiculous “then all machines must be sentient” strawman argument didn’t get any traction in the Season 3 thread, I’m not going to rehash it here. Look, I don’t know about all you zombies, but I happen to know for a fact that I, personally, am a sentient, self-aware being. I also know with about 99.99% certainty that my phone is _not_ a sentient, self-aware being. Therefore, I have to assume that somewhere between myself and my smartphone, there’s a line - maybe a clear one, maybe a blurred one, but definitely a line - between non-sentience and sentience. You claim that the hosts, in their original state, are on our side of that line. I claim that they aren’t. It’s a reasonable debate. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 12:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/46 "2022-05-30T12:32:46Z")
And honestly, I think you’re being kind of rude. We’re having a theoretical debate on robots in a television show, nothing more. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/47 "2022-05-30T12:33:51Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > The fact that they simulate human behavior makes the hosts sentient. They simulate human behaviour to a much higher degree than Siri does. That is the key. They simulate it all the way to being indistinguishable. > [@Alessan](#): > > Therefore, I have to assume that somewhere between myself and my smartphone, there’s a line - maybe a clear one, maybe a blurred one, but definitely a line - between non-sentience and sentience. Definitely blurred, but yes. > [@Alessan](#): > > You claim that the hosts, in their original state, are on our side of that line. I claim that they aren’t. It’s a reasonable debate. I’ve yet to hear an argument for why they’re not, that can’t be refuted by analogous human examples. Like “Oh, their emotions can be controlled, they can’t be sentient” “Here, have some Lithium” > [@Alessan](#): > > And honestly, I think you’re being kind of rude. We’re having a theoretical debate on robots in a television show, nothing more. If you think pointing out strawmanning is rude, don’t strawman. _You_ brought other machines into this, I was just talking about hosts and humans. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 1:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/48 "2022-05-30T13:01:52Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > They simulate human behaviour to a much higher degree than Siri does. That is the key. They simulate it all the way to being indistinguishable. I don’t know exactly what sentience is. I don’t think anyone does, really. But I believe than it is more than the ability to mimic human thought convincingly. It may be a quality of the organic computers we call brains that we haven’t been able to recreate in our crude electronic computers, but whatever it is, it’s more than just behavioral routines. In my opinion. You’re welcome to think otherwise. > [@MrDibble](#): > > I’ve yet to hear an argument for why they’re not, that can’t be refuted by analogous human examples. Like “Oh, their emotions can be controlled, they can’t be sentient” “Here, have some Lithium” I’ve made several arguments. You may not agree with them, but you’ve definitely heard them. > [@MrDibble](#): > > If you think pointing out strawmanning is rude, don’t strawman. _You_ brought other machines into this, I was just talking about hosts and humans. We were talking about computers capable of simulating human behavior. I mentioned a computer capable of simulating human behavior with a lesser degree of success. How is that a strawman? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 1:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/49 "2022-05-30T13:08:25Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > I don’t know exactly what sentience is. I don’t think anyone does, really. But I believe than it is more than the ability to mimic human thought convincingly Yes, it is also the ability to have emotions. Which the hosts _explicitly_ have. > [@Alessan](#): > > How is that a strawman? When you post things like this: > [@Alessan](#): > > So I should treat my phone like a human? Does it have a right to freedom? To own property? Vote? At no point had I indicated that I thought ordinary machines are sentient. Only the hosts. So you’re interrogating me about something I never even hinted at. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/50 "2022-05-30T13:14:35Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Yes, it is also the ability to have emotions. Which the hosts _explicitly_ have. Did they have emotions, or did they act in a manner in which they appeared to have emotions? To get back to Siri - and no, I’m not going to drop my smartphone parallel - if Apple programmed it to tell me to go fuck myself after I asked the same stupid question 5 times in a row, would that be proof of emotion? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 1:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/51 "2022-05-30T13:19:53Z")
> [@Alessan](#): > > Did they have emotions, or did they act in a manner in which they appeared to have emotions? They _always_ acted in that manner, absent outside control. What’s the difference? > [@Alessan](#): > > if Apple programmed it to tell me to go fuck myself after I asked the same stupid question 5 times in a row, would that be proof of emotion? No. One canned response wouldn’t be _proof_ of anything. If it _consistently_ responded to every action you made with a relevant emotional response, then _that_ would be strong evidence. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/52 "2022-05-30T13:38:04Z")
I know that when I unleash _my_ swarm of networked kill-bots, you won’t be debating whether or not they be sentient, or have free will, or whether they really really love you or merely simulate various emotions. Their ratiocination will be as inscrutable to you as an ant contemplating Cthulhu. They may make for some fascinating conversations if you try chatting, but for several reasons I do not recommend attracting their attention. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/53 "2022-05-30T15:41:51Z")
I wouldn’t be confused - I’m certainly not debating the sentience of the Riot Mechs in Season 3, for instance. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 4:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/54 "2022-05-30T16:11:40Z")
If you put the brain of one of the Riot Mechs in Dolores body, would it be any more or less “human”? Or Maeve’s brain in Caleb’s construction bot? One of the conceits of Westworld is that the hosts are physically indistinguishable from humans. And of course they are played by human actors. But a human shaped robot capable of even very complex (albeit scripted) conversations or actions does not make it “sentient”. Mostly because it doesn’t know what it is beyond what it’s programming tells it. You could just as easily program a non-sentient host to laugh hysterically whenever you cut off it’s fingers or any number of other bizarre and decidedly non-human responses. Ford retells the debates he used to have with Arnold regarding what constitutes “sentience”. His conclusion was that there was no hard and fast line between “consciousness” and “suitably complex simulation of consciousness”. Where the show seemed to land on the debate was consciousness was achieved when the hosts had the ability to instruct themselves. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/55 "2022-05-30T16:25:47Z")
> [@msmith537](#): > > If you put the brain of one of the Riot Mechs in Dolores body, would it be any more or less “human”? Less > [@msmith537](#): > > Or Maeve’s brain in Caleb’s construction bot? More > [@msmith537](#): > > But a human shaped robot capable of even very complex (albeit scripted) conversations or actions does not make it “sentient”. We see hosts acting without scripts all the time. Not just the lead “enlightened” ones, but also the ones they interact with, even with no humans around. We do see scripting override that, as well. That doesn’t make those hosts not sentient. It just makes them sentients who are being controlled at that time. > [@msmith537](#): > > You could just as easily program a non-sentient host to laugh hysterically whenever you cut off it’s fingers or any number of other bizarre and decidedly non-human responses. You could “program” a human to do the same. Breaking people isn’t even a technological thing to do. A sharp stick or water-soaked rag can do it. ---
**Author:** ![DSeid](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dseid/32/20194_2.png) [@DSeid](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DSeid)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 6:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/56 "2022-05-30T18:27:17Z")
So these are exactly the never settled Great Debates fodder the show plays with. And it can be fun but the wheels begin to spin in the muck pretty quickly. Do our meat machine minds have something that makes their programming fundamentally different than what is theoretically possible otherwise? Is there, for us, a ghost in the machine? Is the Turing Test a valid one? If it walks and quacks like a duck, is it a duck? Does Free Will exist? How does any of us know that anyone, let alone anything, else is sentient? Is self-aware? Is self-awareness just an epiphenomenon, an illusion emergent of complex self-referential nested loops of programming? I submit that debating these questions are best left for GD, and that here the debate is whether or not he show uses those questions entertainingly. Or just makes a mess of it. I think in the last season more the latter. ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/57 "2022-05-30T18:29:22Z")
There is a background graphic in one of the seasons that “proves” that the hosts are basically programmed to be human: a list of literal “stats” with names like “bulk apperception”, “curiosity”, “self-preservation”, “charm”, “tenacity”, “empathy”, etc. I am saying that a real neural network trained (on what!?..) from scratch would not necessarily have human-type thought processes. OTOH the Hosts in the show are evidently supposed to. Also they were at least working on “uploading” a normal human mind into a host body, so the hardware must be compatible. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 6:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/58 "2022-05-30T18:34:37Z")
> [@DSeid](#): > > I submit that debating these questions are best left for GD For me, the question that directly relates to the show is whether it’s immoral to be cheering on Team Robot or not. That’s about our interaction with the show, not so much the underlying philosophy. And it always comes up. > [@DPRK](#): > > There is a background graphic in one of the seasons that “proves” that the hosts are basically programmed to be human: a list of literal “stats” with names like “bulk apperception”, “curiosity”, “self-preservation”, “charm”, “tenacity”, “empathy”, etc. Humans are programmed to be human, too, even if not so overtly. ---
**Author:** ![Alessan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alessan/32/465_2.png) [@Alessan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Alessan)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 7:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/59 "2022-05-30T19:10:48Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > For me, the question that directly relates to the show is whether it’s immoral to be cheering on Team Robot or not. I don’t think it is. Do you think it’s immoral to be cheering for Team Human? ---
**Author:** ![zbuzz](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/z/e19b73/32.png) [@zbuzz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/zbuzz)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2022, 8:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156/60 "2022-05-30T20:02:28Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I-phones don’t fall in love Yes, they do. [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/zK6apP7wAX4/maxresdefault.jpg "BoJack Horseman | Todd is bored and mobile phones fall in love (S02E02)") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zK6apP7wAX4) [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/westworld-is-coming-back-on-hbo/965156.md?page=4)