Future Fossils Episode Ep. 14 - WESTWORLD Problems (feat. Michael Phillip of Third Eye Drops)
With special guest, host of Third Eye Drops Podcast and fellow esoteric dork extraordinaire, Michael Phillip. We go deep into the layers underneath the layers of HBO’s awesome new show Westworld – its future angst and wonder, and what it can teach us about the value and meaning of human existence.
SPOILER ALERT! We get into details of the Season Finale, so don’t listen to this unless you’ve seen it.
Seriously.
The show is worth it, though, so watch it and then come back to this conversation – in which we totally ignore the precedent of Battlestar Galactica while discussing Westworld’s awesome treatment of “Am I actually a robot?” and its evolution from the original 1970s version – and speculate on the world OUTSIDE of Westworld, the missing context for this robot violence playland that to us makes very little economic sense.
Michael Phillip echoes majestically from beyond the void as we talk about:
• William Gibson’s argument that AI isn’t robots but a “coral reef” in which all internet-connected human beings are participating;
• Magic Leap and other paradigm-shattering technologies poised to arrive on the scene simultaneously and challenge our very sense of what is real;
• Branded mixed reality universes shared by fandoms as AI testbeds;
• The danger of projecting our modern values into a fictional world at least 60 years ahead of the present – one where overpopulation may reduce the value of a human life, or might be jaded with the virtual and really want a “flesh and blood” experience of virtual reality (Is Westworld the equivalent of “artisanal small batch” or “analog aficionado” for the not-so-distant future?);
• How being able to 3D print new body parts might one day inspire a carelessness with physical harm, or possibly even new arts of consequence-free self-mutilation;
• The importance of feeling something REAL, feeling like your consequences MATTER, and how comfort sometimes is the enemy of evolution;
• Is human life losing its value?
• Sentience / Sapience
• And more!
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