official Westworld thread

Having Tweedle Dumb and Tweedle Dumber turn up Maeve's IQ was almost irredeemably lame. That is the equivalent of, what, a Gitmo guard handing an armed gun to a detainee? Shoot, as long as they were doing that why didn't they also just turn up every other attribute of hers, and teach her to code? You know: go all in and just make a Roy Batty murderbot. I am hoping that the suspicious absence of Security in this whole plot line indicates that what they're doing is actually being monitored by one of the conspirators, who is covering up for them.

And that background glimpse of Yul Brynner's man in black (?) in the creepy sub-basement was great!

As soon as anyone from Behavior looks at her, which will happen, they will immediately notice the changes and ask why they were done. Those guys would be fired anyways except now possibly be up on criminal charges for tampering purposely.

First off, the really old models with tracking incompatible with the new system. What the hell? It's clear this company has no problem throwing lots of money at things, so there's no excuse for having models out there that aren't monitored properly. No way that would make it through even the most basic of security audits. Now it looks like the girl in charge of security might be behind the shenanigans the old models are up to, but the technical team would surely have knowledge of what models are active in the park.

Second, the stupid "let's make SuperMaeve" part. The two tech guys are incompetent, OK. One of them is super-interested in interacting with a park model but caught off-guard by her ability to waken, eye-rolling OK. But she coerces them into The SuperMaeve project?! Dude's holding a control panel, just shut her down. The only thing that could explain Maeve in that episode is that she's achieving some level of true AI. There's been hints that the models are somewhat self-aware already, but Maeve is going next-level. Typically when the models see or hear something they're not supposed to comprehend they play ignorant, but Maeve is completely perceptive of all these things in Westworld HQ she's designed to ignore. Her ability to waken also needs some 'splainin.

I'm not on board with true AI consciousness/awareness Maeve right now. I'm also not on board with "Arnold's code is still in there somewhere" having any effect on model behaviour or AI capability. That isn't how software works. The behavioural layer/subsystem that's tied to awareness, improvisation, and all those other juicy show bits should in no way be intimately connected with Arnold's voice command interface. Any interfaces between the software layers would have been documented and audited in a complex system like one the models run. The diagnostic system would be subject to the most scrutiny, would be the system the devs are most familiar with, and by extension anything Arnold coded into that system should be known inside and out.

Already guessed Bernard was a robot but was not expecting them to reveal it so soon. Was definitely not expecting him to murder that woman.

The Bernard reveal surprised me! I was clueless until he said he couldn't see the door. what the fuck was tha call to his "wife" then? Was that just coded and never happened? Is there some "wife host" on the other end? This fucked me up!

I am totally digging the Dolores (...dolorous?) storyline as well. Her beau finally coming to life in a game, and realizing life is a game--that's all cool Philosophy 101 stuff and I am digging it. I may also be feeling some needs to escape, so, ask me again in four years.

I think where the show is not quite right is with Maeve. With cranked intelligence and her talents, she should be totally manipulating these guys. This is one of the "fears" of strong AI--once they get there, we will not be able to keep up and their ability to "prey" on human frailties will be unbounded. We don't stand a chance.

the robot that Ford was creating in the basement will be a copy of Theresa (the QA lady)? Its easy to get away with murder when the victim shows up for work the next morning.

Maeve. For all the reasons I already whined about, but also because if I accept that she's now super smart then that raises a bunch more problems. Her great plan is the old "walk right out" escape? Her intel gathering technique is to "die" every single day? Boooo Maeve, boooo.

Westworld Season 2: Maeve Takes Manhattan