Westworld Season 4: We mostly just talk about better shows now

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Westworld Season 4: We mostly just talk about better shows now

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A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

People have mentioned it, but I appreciate that the world in Westworld doesn't feel far future. It's the world as we know it, but with some shiny gloss where rich people live, not a world where existing cities got replaced by mile high tower blocks. Plus the gig economy for crimes is a great idea. It's like rich people realized criminals created their own social structures, and they wanted everyone atomized, so here comes an app that makes crime a gig the individual can choose if they need a little extra cash instead of something they commit to.

No Luck Needed posted:

crackheads break into construction projects to steal equipment and supplies to resell. I now want a one off episode of jessie pinkman's robo buddy being stolen, chappi'd out, and sent on a crime spree.

they said the future was boring so people needed to go to westworld for fun. Having gun play in Neo-LA was dumb, they should of gone full on Dolores melee those gaurds down instead of a hail of gun fire. How can the future be boring with a GTO crime app, the Ben Barnes character overdosed on drugs, still sounds like lots of corporate espionage. The future didnt look boring enough. We know there are hand held devices to close up cuts and prob do lots of cosmetic fix ups. The ability to grow new organs and probably do skin grafts too. Jessie Pinkman seemed bored of his life but not of the future.

Ersatz posted:

It's pretty exciting if you're willing to commit crimes and to face potential consequences; it's pretty boring if you're not. Westworld provided an outlet and distraction for non-criminals, similar to sports, games, books, movies, etc...

Yeah. I mean, this episode + the trailer pretty much spells out that the AI is managing the entire human population in some fashion or other. Like, it's some worldwide aptitude + social credit system which probably favors people who don't rock the boat too much, even if they do get bored. Those are the people who think the world is boring, because there's basically no challenge, it's just doing what you're supposed to and you might get enough experience that the AI sends you further up the ladder. Plus, it was William who said the future was boring right? Yeah, I can see him thinking this future is boring as poo poo, given his first adventure in the park. Doing what an AI tells you is a pretty bloodless way to get ahead compared to couping your boss's heir by tying him to a horse and making him eventually kill himself.

Milo and POTUS posted:

So the rich kid was going to go to prison for doing drugs? Far fetched

Maybe there's an AI judge that's actually impartial? The whole meritocracy thing makes me think the world puts up an even more convincing facade of "fairness", while as Aaron's friend points out, the rich just cheat and circumvent the system entirely. So like, the rich kid would go to prison if the cops got their hands on him, but that would literally never happen in the first place.

A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 20:12 on Mar 18, 2020

# ¿ Mar 18, 2020 20:08

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 05:21

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Dessel posted:

I'm thinking the Crime App's point is something like Super Google has decided that it's impossible to completely curtail crime and that certain people are prone to it in an absolutely terrible sort of way or "it's actually better have some people commit crime in a society than not".

So it creates a Crime App to channel those things in a controlled fashion.

edit: it's super dumb but makes kinda sense in this dumb show

The world of Westworld seems to basically be "What if techlord liberalism actually got a chance to technocratically solve all the world's problems". I can 100% see the Crime App being a thing in that scenario, and it being dumb is more a reflection of that technocrat tendency than an actual dumb idea from a writing standpoint.

On the other hand, I'm not sure if "global warming being solved" was meant to be real, or if that's just rich people pretending like they solved it when what really happened is the AI calculated the cheapest way to insulate the least at-risk territories from its effects. Or possibly solved it through geoengineering that ended up concentrating the devastation in the areas least able to resist.

Macdeo Lurjtux posted:

When it comes to the outside world is a simulation angle, I wonder if we're gonna get something like that, where Dolores truly believes it is and she thinks that's why the humans are truly awful. All her talk about burning the world down is her believing in tearing it down and waking everyone up so she'll be super confused when that's not the case.

I feel like it's gonna be more like "The dominance of the Big Brain AI means its simulation of the world defines reality", effectively turning the actual real world into a simulation, than the real world being a simulation. Who knows though, but "the real world is a simulation" seems too obvious, and we know they have to trick Reddit.

All those things tie strongly into the idea of how biases in input data get magnified by AI and machine learning, and that you can't just make a neutral "Improve things" program - there's always some value judgment happening, and whoever decides on that has enormous influence on everything else.

# ¿ Mar 19, 2020 12:49

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Still Dismal posted:

Lmao why on earth is there not a “shoot on sight, extreme prejudice” policy for any host or person behaving even slightly oddly after half the loving staff got murdered? Seriously, the cartoonishly incompetent human security is one of the dumbest things about this show. In the first season it makes sense that they’d be less than top of the line after no incidents for 30 years. But in last season and this every human goon has made stormtroopers look like green berets.

I could totally believe they'd hire the cheapest goons around precisely because there weren't any incidents for 30 years, and everyone buys into the idea that the incident was caused by Bernard. No Bernard, no problems. Those goons probably just ran back to base, realized it wasn't another robot uprising, and pretended like nothing happened. Like, the only person that'd send it up the chain has a real interest in pretending nothing happened because they're clearly also incompetent.

Still Dismal posted:

Also maybe don’t have superstrong robot janitors in the same facility as the rogue AI?

I figured the whole thing, apart from being an attempt at prying knowledge out of Maeve�s ball, was a test by Rich French Guy to see whether Maeve was up to the task. He's out to save the world, no way is he gonna cry over a few guards. Also, robot janitors/workers seem ubiquitous, this is probably the equivalent of asking a company to not have forklifts in a warehouse.

Cojawfee posted:

They could have at least just had Bernard lay on the ground behind the desk first to hide him. Then replace the fight scene with Stubbs explaining why he's there. Then maybe have Bernard bolt up when he's done, reveal himself, then do that first fight scene that is at least believable, then they escape. It would completely avoid the second fight that makes no sense.

That is a pretty sensible suggestion. Though I kinda want Stubbs to have almost convinced his former underlings of him having been on some sort of secret mission, then Bernard bolts up, and Stubbs just makes an "aw-shucks" face before just bonking their heads together. Play into the fact that these goons are useless, since clearly they're never going to be portrayed as competent.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2020 17:20

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

PopetasticPerson posted:

You gotta admire the fact that they spent all the money to make WW2 sets, costumes, and vehicles for one single throw away episode. They are really committed to set design in this show.

I can't imagine Hollywood doesn't have a bunch of WW2 costumes and vehicles just lying about, and the location itself probably didn't take much work to look like WW2 Italy. Just remove the most obvious modern poo poo and put some Nazi iconography everywhere and you're pretty much done.

beanieson posted:

I feel this episode was kinda wasted time in an 8 episode season

I feel like this is gonna be the case for any non-Dolores episodes.

# ¿ Mar 23, 2020 18:22

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Donnerberg posted:

Like with most things Westworld since season 1, any time you try to explain something dumb they do, you get a new thing that doesn't hold up. You have to come along for the ride and not overthink it.

Yeah, this is basically my approach: Just take everything at face value. Park guards appearing hilariously incompetent? They actually are incompetent, it's not just a bad script/edit/whatever.

Though thinking about it, the park guards being so incompetent has some interesting implications given that apparently a super-AI is essentially doing HR for the entire world. The AI decided that this was the optimal distribution of workers, that letting anyone else be a guard at Westworld would reduce the utility of that person more than the world would gain from Westworld having more competent guards. Or that the guards at Westworld would cause more problems elsewhere. Maybe Westworld was a safe dumping ground for the people the AI couldn't find another use for, since it seemingly worked so well for a long time.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2020 13:10

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Mooktastical posted:

I think the main point of the episode was to introduce Serac as a player, and that's it. He's already set up as the guy that controls the Macguffin AI that Delores is trying to assert control over.

Yeah, that's my read too, though there's some reestablishing of Maeve's character too, which ties in with Serac. The episode shows Maeve as smart and resourceful, and that she can care for and respect individual humans even if she thinks humanity as a whole is kinda poo poo. Which seems to be Serac's perspective too, giving the two some common ground to build a relationship around. Of course Maeve also has a real problem with people trying to control her, hence attempting to stab him, but that also establishes something about Serac - he's at least smart enough to realize that he's not so charming that Maeve wouldn't just stab him. He's a dude who can actually envision poo poo biting him in the rear end, which is probably more than you can say for 99% of the other rich people. Doesn't mean Maeve won't kill him eventually, but at least he's more of a match for a super smart robot than most.

Thinking about that pairing, I realized it contrast a lot with the Dolores-Caleb pairing. From what I can tell, Serac just wants to preserve the current world order so he can fine tune humanity, possibly letting a robot like Maeve join in at the top of society. Meanwhile Dolores is out to turn the world on its head, presently to put robots on top but possibly through her interactions with Caleb realizing that something more radical is required. And then there's Bernard just bumbling around like a big doofus with his doofus sidekick.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2020 10:17

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EimiYoshikawa posted:

Honestly, I've just really kind of liked Stubbs since the very start, so seeing him actually getting a sizable role in Season 3 was the one good point from Episode 2.

Yeah, he might make the Bernard plot bearable.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2020 12:25

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Fitzy Fitz posted:

Hoping for a venture bros style plot where every episode bernard gets incapacitated and stubbs has to murder twenty mooks with a random object

I kinda want it to be a case of Bernard doing it, then insisting that it's actually Stubbs who did it because Bernard is a sensitive thinker while Stubbs is a brute built for violence.

Fried Watermelon posted:

Hosts from season 2 got sent into space on a satellite and at the end of season 4 they will meet aliens in SPACEWORLD

Westworld is a prequel to Avatar.

thebardyspoon posted:

Stuff happened as well, Bernard got to and left Westworld with Stubbs in tow, I was dreading whatever he was doing there being a multiple episode thing.

Yeah, I could easily have seen Bernard leaving in like episode 7 or something.

# ¿ Mar 26, 2020 15:28

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Elentor posted:

Any AI complex enough to simulate human behavior and understanding of mathematics like they do in Westworld obviously has an algorithm that understands to a practical level what complex numbers are, they're not some mysterious voodoo. The level of technology and AI in Westworld is well past naive judging by what the main robot characters can do.

The plot is that they start having a philosophical debate about math and it escalates for some reason. As soon as they start talking about i they then jump to the Riemann hypothesis, and chit-chatting about common math problems is enough to crash the simulation because ?!?!

AI: √-x = i*√x if x>= 0
AI2: Waaaaaaaaaaat

*Physics stop working.

It's a dumb plot.

Is it a single AI simulating multiple hosts, or a single simulation wherein multiple host AIs are operating? It's already been established that the host AIs have limits put on them, and that this programming is a real hindrance when they start running into the limits of what their programming allows them to understand. An AI without those shackles would just laugh off Maeve's attack, but that's not what she's facing - she's facing host AIs lazily tied into a world simulation. Presumably the setup has the host AIs run off the same hardware as the simulation, while having no limiter to how much processing power they can try to draw from it, because the programmers just lazily kludged together something that'd work perfectly fine as long as Maeve behaved. Actually, they probably took some of the limiters out because they'd be an easy tell for Maeve that all these "people" were hosts, without considering the consequences for the rest of the setup.

Jim Silly-Balls posted:

I think if I resign myself to the show being dumb goofy robot action I can get onboard especially if they go back to Aaron Paul and his escapades.

The first two seasons, the first one especially made it seem like this show was going to have a much deeper message and more important things to say, but I guess not, and in our current hell world I cant really complain about gorgeous looking sci-fi camp if its at least fun to watch

"It'd be good if robots came and obliterated the ruling class" is an important thing to say.

# ¿ Mar 29, 2020 18:23

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Hale is Maeve's daughter.

Cojawfee posted:

I am instantly eating up any theory that lets Jimmi Simpson still be in this show, but young William wouldn't know Hale at all. But I would love if she stole an old backup of young william before he went all sickhouse on everything and then she recreates him.

I think the idea is that whichever host is in the Halebot has had her memories added to their own, meaning it'd be irrelevant whether that host knew Hale beforehand. Of course based on what the Halebot said, these memories have essentially reconstituted Hale within a copy of her body, a rival consciousness threatening take over as the host is forced to rely on Hale's memories to survive. Early in the episode she hasn't been tapping into the personal side of Hale, but the introduction of her kid as well as the original's farewell seems to be triggering an emotional reaction that points to the original Hale consciousness being close to the surface.

# ¿ Mar 30, 2020 20:55

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esperterra posted:

I don't mind it being a mystery, as long as it doesn't last all season.

Agreed. If it's being used to allow the viewer to make judgments about Halebot without being influenced by what the character did in the previous seasons then it's fine, and even OK to have it be a sort-of mystery that you can figure out from the clues they give, but the reveal should come soon.

I said come in! posted:

gently caress, I want to change my vote to this one, but the one issue with this is that her daughter was uploaded into the cloud.

That's what makes it such a great mystery, no one is gonna figure it out!

Cojawfee posted:

I think it's definitely that the AI is noticing weird things that it didn't predict. But does that mean it will notify whoever and cause Dilophosaurus to be discovered? Is it Liam whatever jr who owns the sphere or Surak?

Yeah, I don't think the base idea behind that notification is anything more than indicating when things did not proceed like in the simulation, allowing the AI or its controller to correct it and attempt to refine the model, and something that just happens occasionally. It's when occasionally turns into all the time that warning klaxons should be going off, and I imagine later in the season we'll see the big brain AI graphics go nuts when Dolores starts going to town.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2020 06:09

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beanieson posted:

oh I like this. Maeve could have easily been in a construct when they met & Hale only saw him through her google glass

As far as the show goes, the host bodies are the easy part, so it doesn't seem impossible that he might have an actual physical body used to interface with humans. Though that makes me think that it might end up being an Arnold-Bernard situation, with the AI recreating its creator, though perhaps more in a "let's cover up the fact that I murdered my master" kind of way.

Thinking of sort-of parallels to season 1, I wouldn't be surprised if it's revealed at some point that some scenes were in the simulation, and others in the real world.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2020 16:42

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Cojawfee posted:

I'm surprised other rich people would allow him to exist in such a scenario. They are working "hard" or whatever excuse rich people use for having their money just multiply by itself and he is able to get rich simply because he can run simulations and predict how best to invest his money. Though maybe he makes his money by selling his predictions.

I thought this last episode established that people aren't aware that all this wealth is actually the property of a single person, since it's hidden in a horde of minor stakeholders with no apparent connection? Rich people don't react to this because he disguises himself as something far beneath their notice, while he slowly accumulates wealth and power. This strategy can't work forever though, at some point people will notice the big gaping hole in the economy, like they did in this episode when they looked closer. Which might be a reason to want park guest data, to allow Serac to turn the rich into sockpuppets, at which point he can basically accumulate all the wealth without any reaction.

Assuming Serac is actually the big brain AI, I guess the end game of consolidating all the wealth and power would be to fulfill the goal its creator set for it - to make a perfect simulation of the real world. Only the AI has decided out it's easier to force the real world to fit the simulation than the other way around.

# ¿ Mar 31, 2020 18:49

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GABA ghoul posted:

I didn't like the first episode and hated the second, but the third has kinda won me over. It's the first time I feel like an overall narrative is coming together. The first two episodes felt more like random poo poo thrown at the wall.

In certain ways the world of WW is scarier than other periods of social stratification. Caste systems or the guilded age were objectively bad, unjust and inefficient. Social position was assigned not by ability or potential but mostly by luck and it made things worse for everyone. It's easy to argue against that. The system in WW seems to stratify society based on human potential, which is much harder to argue against. We do want a free society where everyone can become whatever they want to be, but we also want the surgeons operating on us or the judges assigned to our court cases to be the best of the best. There is an inherent contradiction in that.

This is only really a problem under a system where your job is what you are. Even in the real world a lot of people could work a lot less than they do and find their identity elsewhere, with the tech shown in WW it'd be possible for people to explore all sorts of avenues that our socio-economic system has decided are a waste of time. Except as in the real world, a bunch of parasites sits on top of the heap and makes everyone work for them.

The people who want to be "useful" to society would still be able to pursue those tasks (job might not be an appropriate word), it'd just not be expected that everyone would have to do so.

GABA ghoul posted:

It's an interesting topic to explore and I have total faith in this dumb tits & robots show to explore that topic with the appropriate nuance. Especially after season 2.

What does "appropriate nuance" mean? The show going with "meritocracy is a sham (designed to make the people on top feel good about themselves)" is an entirely fair assessment, hell, the very name meritocracy was thought up by a dude mocking the concept. Meritocracy has always been a poo poo idea meant to justify why the people on top are on top, the show is just taking the idea to its natural conclusion - though the only real difference between WW and the real world is that they have a big AI doing poo poo deliberately while the oppression within our system happens more organically.

How are u posted:

I have noticed that the first batch of posts after an episode airs tend to be super critical, and then the mellow viewers who are enjoying the show filter in slowly over the rest of the week. Kind of funny.

The thing this thread is missing is the live posting from goons who will complain about the show being confusing and unclear the next day.

A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Mar 31, 2020

# ¿ Mar 31, 2020 21:28

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Collateral posted:

Also determinism is bunk, iterative prediction would safeguard against it.

Anybody trying to build a predictive system that didn't safeguard against determinism, would fail very quickly. It is, like, phrenology level quackery.

Can you expand on this criticism and how it relates to the show?

DropsySufferer posted:

There should be a voting for who hale bot is. I would vote clementine because the character has that vibe so far.

This also has the most potental vis-a-vis Maeve, Maeve's daughter excluded.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2020 06:43

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GABA ghoul posted:

I'm sure there are ways to explore all kinds of avenues in the WW on some form of basic income. Caleb doesn't want that though because he wants preferred medical treatment for his mother. He wants something more.

Given the society we're presented with, and the fact that it's just an evolution of our own, I'm pretty sure "preferred medical treatment" means adequate, and what she'd otherwise get would be to just be the lowest possible effort the system can provide without causing major unrest.

GABA ghoul posted:

I think most people in society strife for above average societal recognition, prestige or material wealth. And it's obviously mathematically impossible for everyone to have that, so you get to have some kind of mechanism of how these things are assigned. And no matter what, you also always end up with people who have below average of these things and feel frustrated.

But if your job is not the sole measure of your worth, that opens up a lot of avenues for recognition and prestige. Instead of everyone competing to get on top of a single (or a few) pyramid(s), you can have thousands or millions of parallel pyramids, allowing far more people to be on or near the top within a specific niche. What people strive for is also defined massively by the society they live in, and given that the society we live in says that fame and material wealth is what matters, that's gonna skew everyone in that direction. Plus the accumulation of material wealth, in the US in particular, is a (weak) buffer against life threatening diseases, adding a literal survival aspect to the strive for material wealth.

GABA ghoul posted:

A SAT score is a good predictor of a university education outcome, much better than general intelligence. Is it oppressive to use it to assign limited university places according to it?

Given that the SAT score is essentially laundering racial oppression as meritocracy, yeah. You can't look at these things as distinct occurrences, you have to look at the whole process. Seen in a vacuum the SAT might be fine, but given the massive and persistent racial skew of the scores it's clear that your society ensures that certain parts of it are meant to fail. This failure replicates itself in two ways - by preventing members of oppressed groups from becoming more affluent and thus increasing the chances their offspring do well as well, and by serving as a justification for further oppression, arguing that these people are simply more suited for physical labor than rigorous mental work. Note that getting rid of racial disparities alone wouldn't solve the issue, as class also perpetuates itself under such a system, unless you separate children from their parents.

# ¿ Apr 1, 2020 08:45

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GABA ghoul posted:

Capitalism didn't invent resource scarcity. A class of medical graduates is gonna have a normal distribution of competency so not everyone can get treated by the best doctors. A good public healthcare systems tries to distribute the limited resources more randomly(which is much fairer and more transparent than what a free market solution does) but it doesn't make the problem magically go away. Caleb would still be more likely to end up with subpar or average doctors and caretakers than good ones in a totally equal system.

The difference is that capitalism demands resources be concentrated in a small group, exacerbating resource scarcity. Also, given the technology presented in the show, a lot of doctor work could be replaced by AIs and robots, which would largely get around the problem of some doctors being better than others.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2020 15:42

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Xealot posted:

In all kinds of ways, the society in WW seems to be post-scarcity. Advanced AI is apparently common enough outside the park, you have one doing phone therapy, so sure: AI medicine that's accessible to everyone doesn't seem out of hand, at all. To say nothing of food production or manufacturing, which seem like automated processes done with 3D printers in a lab. Resources don't seem scarce at all, but access to them sure is.

It's that part that makes the whole tech-bro "Gods and clods" type of argument about wealth so frustrating. Technology in the show has advanced to the point most people don't have jobs even if they wanted them, but the wealthy are still thinking like an Ayn Rand novel: I control this [industrial thing], thus I'm entitled to all it produces, and if the masses wanted the same, they'd simply do what I did. But that is systemically impossible, even if someone had the will or the talent. The strata of extreme privilege has become so narrow, and the barrier for entry so high, no one can actually get there without being born there. Of course it looks like determinism: there are no options left except literally crime, and even then not really.

Yeah, it's the real world with the last embers of theoretical bootstrap possibility snuffed out. William is probably one of the last people to move into the upper tiers of society, and even then he probably started out firmly embedded in the upper upper "middle class". (Like our "self-made" tech billionaires.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2020 20:28

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GABA ghoul posted:

Well WW taught us that AI is either worse than a human (like Caleb's bonzi buddy therapist) or if it's as good as a human it's basically sentient/capable of sentience so enslaving it is morally wrong. Scarcity not solved

Because capitalism needs to make a discount version so people will pay for premium. Also, "as good as a human" implies that intelligence and such is just a linear scale, when an AI doctor could be a far more specialized creation that's not really primed towards consciousness and personality like the hosts. Of course if you do not properly define its parameters it might go around infecting people with diseases it can easily cure, so as to more effectively achieve its objective of getting its number of cured up, but that's a different problem. Same problem as Roboham possibly trying to change reality to match the simulation though.

# ¿ Apr 3, 2020 13:11

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Where's the idea coming from that it's the body that's giving the host memories? I figured it was as simple as Dolores loading Hale's memory data on its own partition within the host memory? I guess maybe Halebot says something about the body being the issue, but the host probably isn't taking care to be super technical and precise. They're essentially human, and to a human mind the correlation of "I'm in a new body, and the memories of this body are encroaching on my consciousness" would probably make you feel the body was the issue.

# ¿ Apr 4, 2020 19:34

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I really appreciate the current balance of Bernard. He doesn't have the full picture, but he does have enough information to act on, and he doesn't completely break down mentally from curveballs.

As for the revelation that we're dealing with Dolorii, I wonder if this means we're going to see diverging Dolores personalities. They might be aligned now, but they're slowly building up different memories and experiences - perhaps enough that they might end up opposed to one another? Unless they like upload their diaries each day to the others.

Anyway, what's up with the episode title? Is Dolores the Statue of Liberty? Or is it Maeve, with her French connection?

kaworu posted:

I think it needs to be emphasized what a good job they do in using REALLY fabulous and cool architecture from around the world (with pretty minor visual effects) to make a really sleek and visually distinctive kind of future. They're going for a style that (if I were to put a label on it) I would call Corporate Cyberpunk. Does that sound right?

I'm not sure cyberpunk is an appropriate term for that aesthetic. The terms punk and corporate really don't mix, and what cyberpunk aesthetic exists in Caleb's world seems entirely commodified. There's no real sense of struggle or resistance, and even crime is an app. There's very little grime, aesthetically no room for a hardboiled man of action, just the eternal domination of HR.

And yet, the introduction of Dolores into this ecosystem does somewhat fit the bill for classic cyberpunk, despite the sleek facade, though her goals of upending the system goes a bit beyond the traditional cyberpunk protagonist who's often happy to just not be worse off at the end. Anyway, I kinda feel like Cyberliberalism is a more appropriate term, because the world is just liberalism turned to 12 through technology.

qirex posted:

I see the writers have figured out a way for a battle between emergent artificial superintelligences to play out via hand to hand combat [and they'll throw in those riot control droids at some point]. I just really hope the finale isn't a Marvel style "everyone on each side standing in a line and running at each other across a field." It's weird Maeve has the magic hacking powers but Dolores doesn't, I mean she made her own bodies from scratch and they're obviously better than baseline human.

It looks like the Dolorii are defeated in the big parking lot fight, but in comes Drogon and roasts everyone else.

esperterra posted:

I think the red ball was Bernard, or at least it seemed to be b/c I feel like every time she's talked about making Bernard it's shown shots of the red pearl.

but idk i'm high

She says she remade him from memory, twice, in this episode.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2020 08:46

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By popular demand posted:

So can we get some nuke goons and French to guesstimate the size of the explosion that ate paris? I need the sperg

Now I'm not an expert in nukes, but something about the whole thing seems off to me. The guys out in gear and the stillness of the cloud indicates that it's fully developed, but it appears to be large enough that the head of the mushroom should have risen far higher than it has. Like, I'd guess maybe 1 megaton from the size of it, but then the bottom of the head should be about the height at which a airlines fly. Based on the clouds around it it looks more like a 1 kiloton weapon.

In conclusion, Serac is a host built with the nuking of Paris as their backstory. It's based on the real Serac, like Bernard with Arnold, but it is not the real Serac's memory. It's the idea of Paris being nuked, not an actual memory of it.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2020 13:59

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Combat Pretzel posted:

Why is the Hale the only one from the Quadrolores freaking out, but none of the others?

Because she was implanted with Hale memories. The others are merely acting a part, while she's living a double life.

Wafflecopper posted:

you are thinking about this way too hard, i guarantee you the showrunners did not do the scientific research to accurately model the size of the mushroom cloud in a two second shot

I in no way implied that I thought anyone was going for scientific accuracy, I was merely answering the question - or answering why it couldn't really be answered.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2020 15:10

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hobbesmaster posted:

That'd be enough for a 5150 hold today, I wouldn't imagine 50-100 years in the future California would be much different.

Yeah, it doesn't seem like something the WW society would've done away with.

qirex posted:

I'm guessing she bribed people, and/or she recorded and shared a bunch of the conversation they had while he was getting ready like talking about seeing his daughter and stuff.

I wonder if she didn't have some evidence that he killed his daughter in the park. Not strong enough to get him committed, but getting him to attack another young woman while claiming she's a robot imposter would make it part of a more compelling narrative of a man who has lost his grip on reality.

KoRMaK posted:

how did she get william committed? and if she wanted to commit him why did she make him shave and shower??

Way I see it, she needed him out of the house and his guard down, ambushing him with the revelation that she's Dolores in full view of witnesses so they see him go from normal to crazy in the blink of an eye. If he just came out yelling angrily while looking like a hobo he could maybe excuse it with drugs or alcohol, while what she gave the world was professional and calm William shifting into insanity in the blink of an eye.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2020 16:47

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Solkanar512 posted:

Credit to the show for not doing a flashback to Shogun World before they episode started. Nice to see they trust the audience a bit.

The fact that it's not the same character probably helped that decision.

# ¿ Apr 6, 2020 19:10

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Solkanar512 posted:

Hiroyuki Sanada is credited as playing Musashi in both season 2 and last night�s episode. So what do you mean exactly?

The character he's playing is Dolores.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2020 07:05

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Solkanar512 posted:

Yes, and?

There's no point in reminding the audience of the previous character, when it's established within like a minute that Maeve recognizes this dude as someone she liked, but then realizes it's not this dude and actually just Dolores.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2020 10:21

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

GABA ghoul posted:

Cerak seems way too obsessed with saving humanity to be an AI. It's personal for him.

Also, go Bernard. The only good guy in this show. He is the synthesis between Deloris thesis and Cerak's anti-thesis. Guy just wants everyone to get along.

Wanting "everyone to get along" does not make one a good guy, if the reality of your world is deep injustice. Bernard is an agent of moderation, and I don't mean that in a good way.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2020 20:27

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Fly Molo posted:

Bernard is an agent of liberalism.

Well yes, but I couldn't resist the opportunity to invoke MLK's words there.

hobbesmaster posted:

She wants to kill all rich humans

But don't you see? You have to be rich to qualify as a real person.

Kassad posted:

It's an extremely old, aristocratic-sounding first name. Could see a rich, very conservative or old-fashioned family name their kid that. Young Serac was also dressed in a very old fashioned style in his flashback (that scene takes place in 2025 but the kids' clothes wouldn't look out of place in the 1940s).

Yeah, it's like the French Jacob Rees Mogg's grandson or something. Dressing like som prehistoric relic also fits that mold.

# ¿ Apr 7, 2020 21:53

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pop fly to McGillicutty posted:

Y'all fools thinking Serac isn't an AI. He has some old timey kids trauma as his cornerstone and everything.

Please do not infringe on my proprietary theory and evidence.

404notfound posted:

I might be an idiot forgetting huge parts of the past seasons, but have we ever seen a host/AI with a fake flashback? We see Serac as a kid in the French countryside, and unless the show is throwing a new kind of curveball at us, there shouldn't be any reason to doubt that it really happened.

Isn't that like half of Bernard�s scenes in S1?

# ¿ Apr 8, 2020 11:20

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Combat Pretzel posted:

That Paris nuking scene bothered me quite a bit. If you find any kind of wide open prairie to play around as a kid, you're a long long way away from Paris. I wonder if this was deliberate to indicate a fake memory or a lie.

Yeah, it felt fake, like it was someone else explaining the scene with a few key phrases; guys in radiation suits, dead deer, mushroom cloud, rather than someone narrating their memory. Like some AI had a rough sketch of it laid out in its programming, and was now narrating it.

# ¿ Apr 8, 2020 21:27

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Chadzok posted:

Maeve is Neo, Dolores is Agent Smith. The big ball predicty computer thing will present itself as exactly the Architect. Bernard is Morpheus and Stubbs is Trinity. The comparison will become clearer as we proceed.

Bernard is gonna force Stubbs into a tight shiny black outfit.

# ¿ Apr 12, 2020 07:37

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CAPTAIN CAPSLOCK posted:

A very generous interpretation that the show will probably use. Probably should have picked a better graphic to represent that. Maybe one that had the bars fluctuate wildly or simply continue on their current trajectory rather than the one they used which had all the bars go down to 0 for a while on the X axis before hitting NO DATA. It just reinforces Serac's belief that the outliers are a massive threat to humanity's survival.

Yes? Serac sees what he wants to see. A major thing they've been pushing this season is the limits "Big Data", of trusting the models and machine learning. A simulation reaching some sort of positive feedback loop that quickly throws all the values to infinite/zero isn't exactly impossible, but Serac clearly has absolute faith in his god so he interprets it as doomsday rather than a flaw in the model.

Donnerberg posted:

Bernard to Dolores like ten times with slight variations "What is she making you do?" The writing room either forgot about Dupelores in one episode or are treating the Dolorii like drones without her personality just because they merged with the people they replaced.

I mean, so far it's primarily Bernard treating them as separate entities, but the show has already made clear that they are not 100% Dolores - see Hale having an identity crisis. Actually, Yakuza Dolores might be 100% Dolores too, since she didn't take over another person's life.

Cojawfee posted:

I really liked this episode. Maybe they could have done more with genre, but it would be too annoying if they went too crazy with it and if it lasted too long. Maybe do a bit more to code what each genre is. I got noir and romance, but the other ones didn't really stick out enough for me to remember. I also liked the space oddity cover. I like when this show starts playing a song, and I know what it is, but it's not quite there. I can hum along and then finally it clicks and I remember the words. Sucks for the people not enjoying this, because I'm having a blast. I wish they could have just done this for season 2 instead of wasting our time. Aaron Paul is a great add for this season. I'm disappointed that it's apparently only 8 episodes long.

I feel like we missed the nasty genre the drug was supposed to end on? I was assuming some sort of judgment day/horror poo poo was gonna play out when that was mentioned.

e: In any case, I feel like they should've stuck to Caleb's point of view more if they were gonna do the genre thing, and have the drug be more sci-fi. Like, it's trying to do instagram filters on everything to match the genre, making the car chase like an old school one with Tommy guns and poo poo, then puts Dolores in a pink dress with completely different lighting as she lights up those goons, then finishes with ash falling from the skies as the people around him are made to look like terminators.

A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 13:45 on Apr 13, 2020

# ¿ Apr 13, 2020 13:35

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Combat Pretzel posted:

Also, I can't really reconcile liberal recreational drug use, which by nature creates more chaos, with a predictive system. Jesse's drug trip kind of made me aware of it.

I feel like the predictive system cares more about the macro level, and drug use is basically just noise in the grand scheme of things once you remove the criminal element. Especially if it secretly promotes less problematic drugs as cool. Plus the system is designed to weed out the most "antisocial" elements, which probably also includes people whose interactions with drugs would rise to the level of causing real chaos.

hobbesmaster posted:

Unless the drugs make you more predictable.

That too. Some drug addict who gets just enough UBI to waste away their life on drugs without resorting to crime is probably like the perfect outcome for many people from the point of view of this system. And then there's the fact that a drug like Genre seems way less dangerous than alcohol.

Combat Pretzel posted:

Also, it bothers me a great deal that misspelling Enguerrand is actually a show thing, not just iMDB. If these idiots want to go with a French dude, with a fancy name, at least get the spelling right.

He never learned how to spell his name before his parents got blown up.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2020 15:56

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Toxic Fart Syndrome posted:

In Serac's mind: you are if that little girl is going to grow up into an ~unpredictable~. In fact, they probably engineered it so that she would kill herself...

The people most likely to attempt suicide are definitely going to fall into the "I'm glad they're dead" category for Serac. He's basically running a worldwide eugenics program, and having them off themselves saves him the trouble of having to manage their lives so they don't procreate. Which interestingly goes against Ford's belief that humanity was done evolving, given that there's now a guiding hand accelerating it.

hobbesmaster posted:

They rather explicitly thought it was a drug trip though?

Yeah, they couldn't have been much more blatant there. Though wasn't she on genre too? It seems like a weaker defense if she was, given how it just added music and a color filter, rather than enhancing reality by replacing people's faces/clothes and other poo poo.

# ¿ Apr 14, 2020 06:49

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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

Serac's system (so far as we've seen, anyway) isn't really like Colossus either since it doesn't seem to be self-aware or even self-directing; if it were, I doubt it would have accepted the command to give away everyone's profiles. (although, it would be intensely amusing if it was self-aware, and decided that the best response to "give up all your power" would be to flood the world with bogus negative profiles)

I mean, it could be self-aware but all the data being something that it has no control over whether is extracted or not. So like, it's pure input, while the task of outputting the data is left to a much dumber program. Though I suppose if it was aware that this request was likely to be made soon, it could prepare those profiles to in advance to say exactly what would work the most in its favor.

Farmer Crack-rear end posted:

Something along this line occurred to me while watching the episode; if I remember right, Ford says something about people being stuck in their own loops themselves. It's a little too on-the-nose and I doubt they'd go this way, but I could see it as almost-plausible that Ford had a big gambit in play with Westworld where he intended to use the hosts to try to bring down the system; the theme park, after all, being the one place where he was in charge ("we were like gods") and didn't have to submit to the wishes of Serac's system.

Now I'm considering the opposite; the idea that the system recognized the existence of non-human people, and because of a sloppy definition of whose overall welfare it was designed to promote it is now seeking to replace humanity with robots who can have their altruism and logic setting set to max.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2020 05:54

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Sammus posted:

One person�s file literally said they shouldn�t be allowed to procreate so they could be removed from the gene pool.

Wasn't that also the case for Caleb? It's just a giant cockblocking machine, ruining relationships before they even have a chance of getting started.

# ¿ Apr 15, 2020 15:36

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

Sammus posted:

I think Deloris� trip in the ambulance showed us that it is possible to differentiate between people and androids. She had zero white blood cells and a couple other things that confused the gently caress out of the emts.

Yeah, it's not that it's impossible to tell the two apart, it's just that the test is a little more invasive than simply looking at them. They're made to be sexbots, you would expect them to be designed to be indistinguishable at the surface level.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2020 05:43

A Buttery Pastry: Sep 4, 2011; Delicious and Informative!

KoRMaK posted:

Apocalypse now isn't a genre

In the future, it is.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2020 19:12

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 05:21

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stephenthinkpad posted:

All the governments need to do just say the hackers hacked into one of the credit bereau/CIA database and sent out mass prank texts.

No one is gonna believe it's a mass prank text if it knows poo poo about them that no one was supposed to know - even less so if people around them are acting like it's truthful about them too.

bbf2 posted:

We've seen like 14 different humans received their Rehebohim analysis/prediction and every single one of them was some combination of tragedy/misfortune/early death/keep in low class/not fit for reproduction etc (including a seemingly stable and professional psychiatrist from this episode)

She was a rapist with a drug addiction, not at all professional. Hence her getting restricted to a specific category of patients. Not entirely sure how she ended up getting the job, maybe she's sort an edge case that didn't manifest troubling behavior until she was actually becoming a psychiatrist so she just got dumped somewhere she could treat other rejects.

As for why we see the "failures", it might be because the people who are on top don't pay much attention to it because it threatens to undermine their belief that they earned their place. Like Hale's ex husband.

Dr. Abysmal posted:

One question I have is, what did the public think Incite did before this data leak? Dolores presents Caleb with the facts that a predictive AI has collected everything there is to know about him and is using it to completely control his life. This shocks him, and it takes her all day to convince him that it's real and that he should join her uprising. He had no idea. Yet people worldwide get a message on their phones saying "your life is poo poo and you're gonna kill yourself" and there's immediate rioting and suicide and chaos. It's just accepted at face value immediately, they exit the subway station a few minutes later and there's already people smashing windows and fighting each other. The only person that apparently has a more measured response is Charlotte's ex husband, who says "who cares what some AI says, we can make our own choices."

Presumably the people who get shat on the most would be the most likely to accept the idea that they were set up to fail. Considering Hale's social class, her ex husband probably fell into the category of having their life together by design. It's basically the concept of privilege made manifest and undeniable, so Hale's ex husband does what people of privilege do - block out the evidence and say it doesn't matter.

Fitzy Fitz posted:

Am I imagining things or did Dolores say they kept their emotions because it wasn't worth sacrificing who they are to survive? I didn't think it had anything to do with blending in.

Yep, she did say that. They could've had Haleores perfectly mirror the real one, but then it wouldn't be Dolores anymore.

Chef Boyardeez Nuts posted:

Serac still has a Dolores. Related: where did Serac get a Dolores (or a Maeve for that matter) without the encryption key?

He doesn't. Because the Dolores he had was the one inside the security dude who blew himself up, which Hale grabbed on her way out. Hence Dolores "dying" in the simulation.

A Buttery Pastry fucked around with this message at 18:38 on Apr 20, 2020

# ¿ Apr 20, 2020 18:36

The Something Awful Forums > The Finer Arts > TV IV > Westworld Season 4: We mostly just talk about better shows now

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