The fifth episode felt a little dull. The biggest suspense left me in this episode is not the plot, but what kind of values will the author convey to the audience at the end of this season?
- Three sharp turns in the plot
- Intelligent Dialogue System
- Serak's Dystopia
- Dolores' Anarchy Revolution
- Revolution under the Counter-Revolutionary Narrative
- Is "overfitting" the only way out for revolution?
Three sharp turns in the plot
In addition to the plot of Kailo's drug use, this episode has obvious easter eggs and unique fun; the overall performance is quite bland, which is a notch lower than the previous episodes.
Controlling all human beings, the world's most powerful artificial intelligence eldest brother Lei Hebo, letting the most dangerous terrorist Dolores walk around the streets, can only mobilize gang-level forces to control, and has failed repeatedly; More surreal than the various soundtracks playing out in Kylo's head. Various slow-motion playback also contributed most of the time, with more moisture than usual.
However, back to the plot, there are three sharp turns (U turns?) happening at the same time.
The first is Serak. The plot is still going in the direction of whitewashing at the beginning. The survivors who worked hard under the catastrophe are using Rehobo to help correct the corrupt politics of the bad countries in the third world. The older brother, who was traumatized by the nuclear bomb, killed the boss by the way, and successfully turned into a control freak without self-examination, returning to the original position of the big brother.
Then there is Dolores, who also continued the route of blackening in the last episode at the beginning. All the way to kill decisively, go its own way, the goal is kept secret, and never share the plan with others, it seems that other characters are regarded as pawns of arbitrary operation. This episode also took a sharp turn. One stood up to block the bullet and rescued Kylo, the second released Bernard and his party who were obstructing him in advance, and the third died with Serak's pursuers. Why are several of Dolores' soul balls replicas? Does her plan have to be sacrificed and don't want others to bear it? The religious meaning of taking sin for others is stronger.
Finally, the drug-addicted Kylo. The drug reminded him of some "memory fragments". It can be seen that his memory seems to have been tampered with, and many violent behaviors are hidden, which is completely opposite to the previous image of a bad and bad person who was going to the end of the road. There is bound to be a big reversal about Kylo's season finale.
The plot of "Westworld" has always been famous for its suspense and reversal. In this episode, although the three characters have reversed; but because the previous setting was not enough, the new and old settings appeared together, so as an audience, I felt calm (I didn't let the previous The audience sees a timer ticking under the table with bombs). If it is not the unfinished trend, it can only be assumed that the screenwriter has retained a larger plot explosion point.
Intelligent Dialogue System
Since the third season of "Westworld", each episode has been embellished with several sci-fi elements.
The focus of Maeve's episode is the Internet of Things. In the era of the Internet of Things, Maeve with her own WIFI, as a walking hacker, can directly control all the surrounding electronic devices and even automatic firearms. So that she has the general power of Neo in the Matrix in the real world.
The sci-fi highlight in this episode is intelligent dialogue. Although there have been repeated appearances in previous episodes, most of them are Internet-based voice intelligent assistants. In this episode, voice conversations become the operating interface of the Internet of Things. Dolores uses dialogue to operate vehicles to deal with enemies, much like a magician chanting spells in a magical world.
In an era when AI can develop into an advanced species with full self-awareness and extraordinary intelligence, it is somewhat ironic that the sci-fi sense of intelligent dialogue system is still emphasized. The operating system of Dolores' thinking in the play can't even run a thread independently, using microsecond-level thinking interaction instead of second-level voice interaction to operate the Internet or the Internet of Things in the mind.
In fact, intelligent dialogue is not a sci-fi in the far future, it is already one step away from our real life. With the development of natural language processing technology in the field of machine learning, we already have many intelligent customer service (Ali Xiaomi), Q&A, chat programs (Microsoft Xiaoice) and even telemarketing disguised as humans in our lives. It is very easy to perform intent recognition and entity extraction for short instructional sentences (for example, "how is the weather today", extracting the word "today" as a date entity) with the existing technology.
At the same time that natural language scientists are obsessed with pursuing the truth of natural language and want to develop Turing robots that can chat with people at will - "Westworld" S3E5 seems to suggest another way: the purpose of voice interaction is not only anthropomorphism, but more often It is a form of human-computer interaction.
Personal computers freed computing power from huge computer rooms and moved it into many people's bedrooms; touchscreen devices freed computing power from the bedroom and put it in our hands. Let a person who is difficult to have a separate room, a separate table and chairs, a quiet environment and independent time can sit on the toilet or squat by the curb, and immersely play the glory of the king.
When Dolores uses intelligent dialogue, her eyes are freed to observe the changes around her, her hands are freed to prepare for battle, and her body is freed to quietly blend in with the crowd while letting the AI complete various tasks. The value of the dialogue system lies not only in anthropomorphism, but also in liberating the human body, thereby liberating productivity.
To achieve the purpose of voice-operated machines, the most important thing is not that humans can understand all kinds of weird expressions (high-level natural language understanding), and don’t forget that humans themselves can learn and adapt. The most important thing should be how to accurately and efficiently allow users to complete the interaction.
I personally think that when those who control the resources figure this out, our lives will soon be full of smart conversational devices like the popularity of touch screen phones in the past.
Serak's Dystopia
This episode revealed that Serak had a respectable motive in creating Rehobo, which was to avoid the destruction of human civilization due to its own inferiority. That's an assertion that Westworld season two has already made. The Selack brothers, as survivors of the nuclear disaster in Paris, dedicated their lives to the goal of saving human civilization, also seem quite noble. In line with the "noble motives" that a "dystopian" story wants to criticize (the revolutionary who argues that the more noble the ideal is, the more likely it is to lead to greater disaster).
The reason why the "dystopian" story is a prominent study in the Western literary and artistic world is rooted in its opposite, the "utopian" story. In fact, throughout the entire history of the West, most of the revolutionary movements opposed to the existing order stemmed from a yearning for a certain "Utopia".
This other side can be a philosophical "Utopia" that favors rationality and virtue, or it can be a religious heaven on earth that favors eternity and enjoyment... No matter how this other side is constructed, the key lies in its actual impact, uniting the most oppressed groups of people. Under the command of a certain savior (Mass, Messiah, Maitreya Buddha, or Messiah), subvert the existing order.
So if there is another group of people who want to oppose this anti-revolution, going back to the source, it has to start by opposing "utopia". So "dystopia" stories appeared. In short, a new order was established to oppose the old order of disasters and supported people's ideals. It looks orderly, but it is mostly totalitarian in nature. And anti-human.
This anti-humanity can be forcing people to take sedatives to give up their emotions ("Tear Doomsday"), it can be to use genetic predisposition to determine people's division of labor ("Divergent"), and of course, it can be to use Rehobo to control everyone destiny to ensure that human society does not go toward self-destruction ("Westworld" season three).
As discussed repeatedly in the comments of previous episodes, Rehobo's setting is the epitome of a "techno-dystopian" story. There is the original intention of preventing human self-destruction ("Watchmen"), there is super surveillance ("Hawkeye"), there is Big Brother (Serak), and there is planning of human destiny ("The Matrix", "My Robot", "Destiny Planning" Bureau") ... Rehobo's settings are easily hateful.
So for many people, instead of accepting this seemingly good new order, it is better to go back and embrace the bad old order. In Kylo's words:
I would rather live in chaos, than a world controlled by you
When Kylo said that, the plot of Westworld season 3 looked suspicious once again.
Just as "utopian" stories tend to serve revolutionary narratives, "dystopian" stories tend to serve anti-revolution narratives, which seem to call on people to overthrow a false utopia, but at the same time suggest that people might as well live with it Everything that was evil and not beautiful before the bad utopia.
Dolores' Anarchy Revolution
Dolores, who was on the opposite side of Serac, did not immediately launch a disaster as I feared in the last episode. Instead, she just seemed wise and selfless to subvert Serak's actions, sending Rehobo's secret control over the fate of all humanity to everyone.
After learning the truth, people began to be confused. Knowing the truth, as Lim fears, could lead to chaos, looting and even murder. He was a prophecy, and as a result he himself was shot and killed by the disappointed.
However, Dolores' response was clear, "People deserve the truth," which seemed to promote a political correctness that didn't need to consider the consequences. Her figure became taller, and for the first time in the play, she stepped from darkness into bright sunshine, and the background music became positive and full of warmth for the first time.
Further, Demei's bodyguard avatar let Bernard and the two die together with the enemy, seemingly answering Maeve's previous doubts that she only brought out a copy of herself. The truth is that the new world that Demei wants to create is only herself, or does she only hope that the life of the Host sacrificed on the revolutionary road will be borne by herself?
Her image became bright again in this episode, especially in the eyes of the drug-addicted Kylo, full of beauty in high light.
The question is, does the screenwriter hide any foreshadowing to manipulate the audience's feelings in this political correctness?
It's clear that the writers made their evaluation of Dolores a thread this season, and I'm one of the people they manipulated. They kept manipulating the audience's reversal of Demei's perceptions to raise constant questions from the audience, whether Demei is a good person or a bad person, and what price will she pay for letting people lead to freedom in her calculations?
Regarding the fact that Demei sent Lei Hebo's secret to all human beings, what I felt was not the bright side, but more doubts. As I try to quote under each episode review, a great man said:
Not only are we good at breaking an old world, we'll be good at building a new one
Demei may be able to subvert the dystopia created by Lei Hebo with the truth, but she does not build a new world. For the ensuing turmoil, especially Lim's killing, Demei seems to have no worries.
The reason why Serak wants to create Rehobo to control the destiny of mankind is because the inferiority of mankind will inevitably lead to self-destruction. This also corresponds to all kinds of self-destructive actions under the wars, natural disasters, and plagues that mankind is currently facing. Demei shared Serak's point of view in the second season, so after destroying Rehobo, how can she avoid the crisis of humanity going to the pre-Rehobo era?
Further, we also know that Demei's Core Drive has always given Host a bright future. And subverting the false hope created by Lei Hebo and awakening human self-consciousness, how can it serve the fate of other hosts? Demei went from being cruel to Wright, who wanted to pursue the truth even at the cost of destroying the Host's heaven, and suddenly became the new Misha of all mankind. What kind of thinking change did she experience?
In the end, Serak managed to "write the history of mankind" by manipulating people's fate through Rehobo. On the side of Demei, she obviously concealed Kylo's true identity and experience (Lim was afraid of Kylo's true identity, so he turned to attack Kylo), and has been manipulating him for his own use. What's the difference between Demei's behavior and Serak's method?
All these unresolved issues make Demei's Weiguang appear false. She launched an anarchist (anarchist) revolution, but has yet to build anything. From this point of view, she is not different from Bane in the movie "Batman: The Dark Knight Rises" or Arthur in the movie "Joker".
Revolution under the Counter-Revolutionary Narrative
If you have read my comments on the previous episodes, you will know that while I like the theme of "Westworld" very much, I have always been worried about the story direction of the third season.
The first season uses the "improvisation" bug to awaken the Host itself, igniting the spark of revolution; the second season expounds the free will of "willing to change", marking the advanced nature of the Host and replacing the decaying human society The inevitability of the inevitability; the ideal ending of the third season in my mind has always been that Demei unites the host and the oppressed bottom of mankind to explore a revolutionary path that conforms to common interests.
However, out of my doubts about HBO's consistent urination, I have also been worried that Demei's image will collapse like a dragon mother. After all, Long Ma, who has suffered countless times, dedicated herself to the people, and led the struggle for six seasons, can be completely blackened in one episode and become a tyrant who slaughtered millions of terrorists, making fans all over the world angry... The role of Demei In the hearts of the audience, I am afraid it is not as good as Long Ma.
The vague "Apocalypse" tendency of the fourth episode of the third season has already made me have a lot of doubts; and this episode's seemingly high-profile Anarchy revolution has not dispelled my doubts.
Because whether it is Serak's dystopia or Demei's Anarchy revolution, they both exist under the counter-revolutionary narrative.
What Serak launched was a silent, top-down revolution, using technological hegemony to create his personal totalitarianism, depriving everyone of freedom and enslaving the fate of all mankind in the name of saving human history. This gives the impression that the dystopia that marked the achievements of the revolution was not as good as the chaos that preceded the revolution.
And Demei's reckless Anarchy Revolution so far has not made any changes to the self-destruction of human civilization before Lehobo, but has to pay a greater price for overthrowing Lehobo. This gives the impression that the Anarchism that marked the revolutionary process was inferior to the order established by the dystopia.
The failures of both point to the same cryptic conclusion, that since human nature will eventually be destroyed, it is better to live with the old order than to establish order through totalitarianism, or to destroy order through turmoil. So the banner of conservatism was raised.
If the writer of "Westworld" continues the ideology of the first two seasons, he will eventually design a development of positive and negative, so that the road of Demei can get out of the sinking of this conservative prophecy, and establish the road of the great union of mankind and the Host. . However, there are only three episodes left in the third season. How can the plot return in this direction?
Is "overfitting" the only way out for revolution?
Here, I want to be the kid in the Emperor's New Clothes, pointing out an obvious but often overlooked question.
Is 'dystopia' the only way to build a new order? Is 'Anaqi' the only way out of the old order?
In this episode, Serak tries to keep the head of a country from doing harm to the local people. He played three cards and told the other party that the reason why he had to elect the president in the past was manipulated by Rehobo; now that someone is trying to oppose him, it was also manipulated by Lehobo; and the military coup to overthrow him in the future is still manipulated by Lehobo. of.
An obvious question is, since Rehobo has such a powerful ability to manipulate human society, why should there be a system of sham elections and the possibility of a military coup? Don't they have the imagination to reform the system so that voters can no longer be manipulated by lies, elect officials who truly serve the people, and end political instability?
Just as Rehobo discovered that the fate of Kailo and others would come to a tragic end, so he chose not to invest in them. The problem is that since these people have gone wrong because of factors such as poverty or lack of education, Rehobo can't change poverty, make everyone educated, have a good community to grow up in, receive proper medical care, have a chance to get a job...so as to avoid Such a fate?
Rehobo just made predictions, not really making a choice. It was the person who controlled Rehobo who made the choice. After seeing the problems suggested by Rehobo, they chose to give up the solution of changing the system and investing in the poor
To put it simply, super technology like Rehobo has a class nature. On the one hand, it ensures that the Incite young master Lim still enjoys prosperity and wealth without experiencing hardships and dangers, on the other hand, it turns a blind eye to the tragic fate of the poor that can easily be changed through investment. To make people obey an existing class order is the goal of Lei Hobo with all his computing power - and changing the existing order to serve the majority of people has never been the driving force for Lei Hobo to write history.
This is the "elephant in the room", everyone can see it, everyone ignores its existence. Just like in the recent movie "The Hunger Platform", the characters have been in an environment with a very serious class division (333 floors, the upper floor takes all), experimenting with various methods that can ensure that everyone can get food and survive, and fail again and again.
All people are obviously prisoners of the pit, not of their own humanity, but they are all complaining about their own humanity, and they are trapped in tragedy and cannot extricate themselves. No one has ever challenged the unreasonable existence of this deep pit.
In contrast, "Snowpiercer" is very progressive, when old William (ah, the show, it's the train conductor) told the revolutionary leader Captain America (ah, again, the show), the existence of the train is related to the survival of all human beings , can only be maintained by the sacrifice of the poor and even children, and the hero as the revolutionary leader is the next train conductor. The hero cast aside all hesitation and chose to destroy the train itself.
This is a serious revolutionary theory. We are not trying to make one class dominate another, but to destroy the class itself. We are not creating a new state to overthrow the rule of the state, but to destroy the existence of the state itself.
Returning to the world view of "Westworld", Lei Hebo is completely the defender of the old order. It has always avoided the uncertain risk of causing it to die under the framework of the old order, but has never challenged the system itself. Structural defects.
From the sci-fi setting, I can only assume that Rehobo is caught in the "overfitting" of machine learning. It accepts all the data accumulated by the old order of human society, learns the laws of history, and tries to predict the future.
For Lei Hebo, the national system, economic system, production relations, etc. in the sample data have instead become constants. Ensuring that these constants do not change is the reason why the Leho wave can predict the future; and to continue to ensure that the Leho wave can predict the future, it must defend these constants at all costs, otherwise the prediction will inevitably fail.
And the variables in these data are individual people, so that people who destroy the stability of the system will be isolated and eliminated by Selak, just like those faulty Hosts in Delos Paradise are put into the cellar (these are obviously also the United States Metaphors of literature and art to certain countries that affect their interests in reality).
The algorithm itself does not create the problem. The philosophical flaws in the thinking of the people who designed the algorithm and the wrong modeling of the world are the root of the problem. In their model, they got it wrong about what should be constant and what should be variable.
If humanity really remains the same as Host said, then what really needs to change is the system and the system. What Lehobo has to do is not to use the existing history to predict a definite future, but to speculate on countless possible futures, which one is the best?
Since totalitarian dystopia is not the only way out for revolution, is Anarchy against all power the only way out?
If Lehobo's algorithm for predicting the future is so powerful, it should be a warning for the future of humanity. It can predict the inevitable outbreak of an environmental crisis, predict the corruption of political elections, and predict that the lack of medical care, education, security, and employment will inevitably lead to tragedy for people in a certain area.
Rehobo can reveal these inevitabilities, transforming himself from a priest who fashions false hope into a prophet who destroys opportunism. Because the essence of "false hope" is opportunistic obedience to the existing order, whether the false hope comes from the science of success, from the religious view of reincarnation, or from the indulgence of living.
In this way people are forced to make changes, at any cost. Just like what the Hosts experienced, when Maeve, the maid of Sweetwater, no longer wanted to tell jokes about the New World, the innocent Dolores knew that the love she yearned for was only a tragic death after being raped, when Teddy knew Never take Dolores to a mountain behind that doesn't exist...they wake up and destroy Delos Paradise.
Therefore, Rehobo is class-based. When it is in the hands of the ruling class, it becomes the defender of the old order; and when it is in the hands of the oppressed, it becomes the "improvisation" bug of human beings. Human beings, like Host, can see both the tragic past of their own kind in an infinite loop, and the future that has no hope without change.
To achieve this goal, we must first break one of the stupidest flaws of Western philosophy, which believes that free will comes from random events with small probability in the algorithm of the human brain.
When Forge's administrator AI forged Delos's path a million times, Delos did not change the fate of killing his son and denying his original motive. So Host believes that human thinking lacks this kind of randomness and cannot change fate.
Yet the AI never once told Delos with irrefutable prophecy that he was facing the future of his son's suicide, or that William would kill his daughter with his own hands.
Compared to Delos and William's blindness, AI itself is the real complacent, and they don't even realize that "a full understanding of the future is the greatest weapon to change the status quo" .
Overfitting to historical experience is the fundamental reason why Western philosophy believes that repetition falls into a loop. The truth is the prophecy of the tragic fate of mankind, the longing for a better future, and the subversive imagination of the existing order, which makes the human civilization different again and again and realizes the spiral upward.
This is the fundamental difference between the mechanical materialist view of history and the historical materialist view of history guided by dialectics.
I sincerely hope that "Westworld" also sees through this truth, and everything that is laid out now is to pave the way for this philosophical transcendence.
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