Many people don't like the third season of "Westworld". I guess it's because they feel that it's not very "Westworld". They want to see something new and unique, but in reality, this series is a remake, so where is the novelty? When we watch a work, what we mainly look at is what it expresses. The form of expression serves the content.
I have a high opinion of the third season. It showcases the human crisis we are facing now and will face in the future. The crisis is so obvious, and it is closely related to everyone. Why can't many people understand this?
I never have high expectations for the audience's appreciation ability, even for well-known works like "Gone with the Wind" and "Forrest Gump". Can the audience really understand these films? Most of them just think they are inspirational, but in fact, these two works are heavily politically influenced.
Back to the point, this season is about big data, algorithms, and their analysis and control of human behavior. It can be divided into two parts.
The first part is about the analysis of collective human behavior, which is similar to Boltzmann aerodynamics. It doesn't need to focus on individuals at all. Group behavior is highly predictable. And it is easy to train human groups. Just like the recommendation algorithms and advertising systems used by TikTok or Facebook. Cambridge Analytica on Facebook greatly influenced the U.S. election by targeting susceptible audiences.
For humans as a group, they are easily analyzed and controlled. The behavior of the controllers and the consequences they can cause can be scientifically and accurately measured. Let's take a simple example. When delivering an advertisement on TikTok, the number of conversions it can generate can be accurately predicted.
For an ambitious person, as long as his voice can reach a sufficient number of audiences, it is quite simple for him to obtain what he wants through it.
Because humans are inherently easily controlled creatures, controlling them is no more difficult than controlling a flock of sheep.
The second part is about big data controlling the fate of individual humans. In the first part, such as advertising delivery, there is no need to consider what specific individuals are thinking. Only the macroscopic probability distribution is needed. However, big data can also be used to control individuals. Just like what is shown in the third season of "Westworld", your personal information can be inferred through big data, artificial intelligence, and algorithms to predict your future.
This kind of prediction does not require human intervention. It doesn't need psychologists or anything like that. The characteristic of artificial intelligence is self-learning and fitting. According to the algorithm, it only needs to know people in similar situations, maybe a million people, and based on certain parameters, build a model that shows the differences between them and other groups of people, as well as what most of them have experienced. In the media and advertising industry, this is called building user profiles.
This thing is similar to scientific fortune-telling. In the past, there were four blood types, twelve zodiac signs, and phrenology. Later, there was the Briggs personality classification with sixteen personality types. The models built based on artificial intelligence will be more detailed, but they will definitely not pay attention to the differences of specific individuals. As the controller of the system, it only needs to be able to calculate the statistical differences between different categories.
This is similar to phrenology, classifying collected skulls into limited categories, and then comparing the personality differences between different categories of people. It is quite statistical and empirical. But it needs to be more detailed and even have a certain accuracy.
Through the system, you are classified as a dissatisfied group in society, a group of people unsuitable for certain jobs. Who will listen to your defense that you are not such a person? Who will care that you are just a different individual? You may not even know which category you have been assigned to.
This has been shown in many works, such as "Minority Report" and "Psychopass". The problem is that this is not a scenario that only appears in science fiction works, but something that humans have the ability and motivation to achieve. It is even possible that some large companies are already doing such things. They control your job promotion, they control your credit data.
In this situation, the system does not expect you to behave beyond its predictions. The system dislikes discrete data. As long as you are in the system, there is a methodical way to deal with you.
When you are completely predictable and act according to expectations, where is your freedom?
For most people today, even when they watch a movie, they don't expect to see freedom in it. The emotions, twists, and sublimations they see are all tailored to them based on the analysis of the creators. They are moved where the creators expect them to be moved, and excited where they expect them to be excited.
Going back to the question, do humans have free will? Objectively speaking, most of them don't. Their lives are already laid out, even without big data algorithms, just based on human experience.
In the end of the third season, Dolores destroys the supercomputer that controls human big data. Does humanity gain freedom? Of course not, human freedom comes from their ability to choose. Destroying the supercomputer removes the shackles from humanity. What I am looking forward to seeing is what humanity will do after the shackles are removed.
The development of the fourth season is disappointing because humans have not yet realized their own freedom, but the hosts destroy the entire civilization and bring it close to extinction. Where is the variable that the story is supposed to generate when you have wiped out humanity?
The development of the story relies on the characterization of the characters and their choices. The main hosts' characterization has already been completed in the previous seasons, and there is nothing new or unexpected in the fourth season. The variables can only be left to humans, and that's what the writers did. However, the way it is portrayed is too cliché, with the main human characters repeatedly living and dying for the sake of their love for their daughters.
Every human and host has their own behavior baseline or core motivation. For example, in the second season, William's eternal failure lies in the inconsistency of his behavior baseline. This can be compared to the main character in the fourth season establishing a baseline based on love, but what does this show for the whole story? The theme of love cannot be questioned, but it shouldn't be cliché either.
The fourth season should be a transitional season that drives the development of the story. This is a problem with the rules of American TV shows. They leave a lot of suspense to open a new season, but end up disappointing when it comes to filling in the gaps.
All stories are about humans themselves, whether they are about superheroes, mutants, or androids. The audience needs to have this awareness. The choices and dilemmas they face are inevitably the choices and dilemmas of humanity. Ultimately, the path of humans will return to their own hands.
Of course, this is an expectation. We cannot guarantee the realization of this expectation.
Perhaps with the development of artificial intelligence and big data, it will really be as described in these works, and humans will no longer have freedom.