This is an important aspect of our own intelligence. The object doesn’t need to be truly conscious for us to confer consciousness on it, though we may do this on a subconscious level. As is both explicitly and implicitly asserted in Westworld, if the object of our attention becomes sufficiently realistic in its emulation of consciousness, we will fill in the gaps to maintain the illusion. What we do know is that advances will continue to be made and the verisimilitude of these systems will increase. It’s nearly as easy to say there must be something essential, something vital in our own inner workings that will make it impossible to replicate conscious thought, whether that depends on a deity-bestowed soul or some unknown feature of natural neural dynamics. Of course, it’s easy to take a reductionist view of our own brains and say that, of course machines will one day become conscious. So what happens when even consciousness itself is no longer unique? What happens when the last bastion of supposed human exceptionalism falls? These technologies continue to grow by leaps and bounds with no evident end in sight. Growing worries about losing our livelihoods to technology, the increasingly capable machines and software we surround ourselves with, have given us new existential concerns. We have repeatedly turned this looking glass on ourselves to examine the threats and anxieties we see manifest in this age of technological wonder. In few places has this been so evident as reflected in the mirror of recent science fiction. These are today’s mirrors, the media by which we explore our humanity again and again. This pervasive drive enables us to explore the major questions of our existence, opening windows onto ourselves unlike any other.įor over a century, we have manifested our obsession with storytelling through increasingly technological means: radio dramas, cinema, television, video games and presumably soon many more. Perhaps the most universal of these rituals is storytelling. The mysteries of experience and existence have driven introspective exploration throughout the millennia, manifesting in rituals that are as personal as they are ubiquitous. They have been at the core of philosophical thought from long before Descartes and Locke, possibly sparked by the very origins of consciousness itself. Why do you perceive the world the way you do? What is it that makes you reflect on it from your perspective at all? Is the way you experience each sensation and stimulus the same as everyone else or is it as unique as your own fingerprint? But can and will machines ever actually attain consciousness? That truly is the Big Question. Ultimately, they may far surpass us by nearly every metric, unseating humanity from its long-held perch at the apex of intelligence. These intelligences will continue to accelerate in their development for decades, if not centuries. Make no mistake about it: despite enormous advances and milestones passed in recent years, machine intelligence in the real world is only just getting started. This is a critical moment in the series, just as it may be a critical stage awaiting us in the not so distant future: the rise of machine consciousness. “If the object of our attention becomes sufficiently realistic… we will fill in the gaps to maintain the illusion.” Rise of the Machines In fact, this marks the beginning of their transition to fully conscious, self-aware beings. The reveries are purportedly intended to perfect the illusion that these androids are as human as you or me. These reveries are tiny repeated gestures linked to a programmed memory, a synthesized expression meant to suggest each host has its own emotional history. However, in order to offer continuing improvements for the park’s guests (among other reasons), the co-architect of this world, Robert Ford (played by the brilliant Anthony Hopkins) introduces a subtle new feature to the hosts: a reverie. They exist merely to perform elaborate storylines for the entertainment of jaded, well-to-do guests who seek relief from their own boring, increasingly dehumanizing existences. They are mere automatons, running scripts as mechanically as the saloon’s player piano. A nearly complete reboot of the 1973 Michael Crichton sci-fi thriller by the same name, Westworld is a technologically miraculous amusement park in which human “guests” interact with lifelike android “hosts.” Though incredibly realistic, from the outset these hosts are considered to lack sufficient consciousness to be thought of as alive. In many respects, Westworld is the ideal vehicle for exploring the dilemmas of consciousness.
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