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 obvious, and it is closely related to everyone. Why do many people fail to 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 reality, both of these works have strong political propaganda elements.
Getting back to the point, this season is about big data, algorithms, and their analysis of human behavior and control over humanity. It can be divided into two parts.
The first part is about analyzing collective human behavior, similar to Boltzmann aerodynamics. It doesn't require focusing on individuals at all. Group behavior is highly predictable. It is also 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 US 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. Delivering a targeted advertisement on TikTok and predicting how many conversions it will 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 this.
Because humans are inherently docile creatures, controlling them is no more difficult than a shepherd 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 used to infer your personality and predict your future through big data, artificial intelligence, and algorithms.
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, establish a model that shows the differences between them and other groups of people, as well as what happened to the majority of them. In the media and advertising, this is called creating user profiles.
This thing is like a scientific fortune-telling method. In the past, it was based on blood types, zodiac signs, and phrenology. Later, it was the Briggs personality classification with sixteen personality types. The models established based on artificial intelligence will be more detailed, but they will definitely not pay attention to the differences between 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 degree of accuracy.
Through the system, you are classified as a dissatisfied group in society, or a group of people unsuitable for certain jobs. Who can you argue with that you are not that kind of 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. Controlling your job promotion, controlling 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 of dealing with you.
When you are completely predictable and act according to expectations, where is your freedom?
For most people nowadays, even when they watch a movie, they don't expect to see freedom in it. The emotions, twists, and sublimation they see are all tailored by the creators based on their analysis of the audience. 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 laid out in front of them, even without the use of 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 make choices. Destroying the supercomputer removes the shackles from humanity. What I am looking forward to seeing is what humans will do after these shackles are removed.
The progression of the story in the fourth season is disappointing because humans haven't realized their own freedom yet, but the hosts destroy the entire civilization, approaching extinction. If you eliminate humanity, where will the variables that the story is supposed to generate come from?
The development of the story relies on character development and their choices. The main hosts' development has already been completed in the previous seasons, and there is nothing new in the fourth season. There are no surprises. The variables can only come from 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 love of their daughter.
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 is this showing for the entire story? Although the theme of love cannot be questioned, it should not be cliché either.
The fourth season should be a transitional season that drives the development of the story. This is a problem with American TV series rules. They leave a lot of suspense to open a new season, but end up disappointing when it's time to fill 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 human choices and dilemmas. 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 like what these works describe, and humans will no longer have freedom.