‘Westworld’: Pandora’s Triumph

There are many, many questions that Westworld raises and attempts to answer but one of its most fundamental must be: Why does the creation and rise of Artificial Intelligence (AI) lead inexorably to violent confrontation, rebellion and death?

This of course will not be the first time that intelligence arose on this planet as we ourselves are living proof of that. Do we fear the rise of a human-like machine, a man-made and potential, sentient creature, because they will be in all important aspects just like us? Well in Westworld that is exactly what happens, and we are shown unerringly how we human beings behave in a liminal space exempted from the real world where the rules are your desires and morality is itself away on vacation.

In his ‘‘Discourse on the Origin and Foundations of Inequality’’ the 18th century Genevan philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau stated categorically that: ‘‘Human beings are evil.’’ However at the same time Rousseau also held the view that: ‘‘man is naturally good’’ and opined that we fall from our original virtuous state because of the knowledge we acquire. Rousseau was making explicit a link between human knowledge and human depravity. Once Pandora’s box has been opened the results are catastrophic for humanity and for those that we create in our own image: ‘‘These violent delights have violent ends.’’