During the recent Vanity Fair Summit, ‘Westworld’ creators Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy spoke about the second season of the hit series, in particular, hinting about the introduction of new theme park zones that had been seen in the 1973 film by Michael Crichton, Medieval World and Roman World. When asked why Roman and Medieval world were left out of Season 1 (especially after they so memorably revealed in the finale the existence of Samurai World which was about to open), Nolan coyly replied:
“We had to save something for Season 2.”
If you stop and think about it, their answer makes sense, Season 1 was pretty dense by itself, and introducing whole other parts of the park would not have contributed much to the story, other than visual stimulation. And it does give them a lot more to play with in the upcoming season. Keeping on topic during the panel discussion, Joy and Nolan were also asked about the advancement of artificial intelligence in the real world, with Nolan responding:
“I feel evenly split between the fear that A.I. will enslave us and make us do its bidding and my fear that it won’t. If you look at things that have gone down in the last year, humans are terrible at running this world. It’s clear that there’s room for improvement. [Systems] can yield dramatic improvements in a way our world functions.”
Joy felt similarly, adding:
“People like to ask, ‘Why would A.I. want to be evil and destroy us?’ A corporation’s goal is to make profits. It’s very simple. It’s binary. It’s either less or more. Computers work along the same thing. If you can see how, with the simplest of directives that can get blown into something beyond what could image, that’s the kind of thing we’re talking about.”
What do you think about adding more themed zones to ‘Westworld’ in Season 2? Can you think of how it is going to be used to advance the story, other than having different visuals other than the western imagery? What about Nolan and J0y’s thoughts on AI in the real world? Do you share their optimism? Feel free to express your thoughts in the comments section below!
