Humans are so bound by what they can hear, they’ll never understand what they don’t.
Tessa Thompson as Charlotte Hale, Westworld S4E5
I finished watching the fourth and final season of the HBO series Westworld. Apparently series creators Lisa Joy and Jonathan Nolan had plans for a fifth season, but the writing quality declined considerably during the final three seasons and HBO chose not to go forward. By Season 4, the story was so incoherent I frequently didn’t understand what was happening.
One of Westworld‘s themes was where to draw the line between “real” (human) and “artificial” (technology). The question was put to us explicitly in a Season 2 episode – if we can’t tell the difference, does it matter? We face a similar dilemma now in the real world with the sudden ubiquitous nature of AI. Is a book or painting generated by AI less real or authentic than a similar work created by a person? What about a work created by a person with AI-assistance? Will art become defined by who can generate the most sophisticated AI prompts?
A recurring image in Westworld, primarily in Season 1, is a player piano. The opening credits even show a piano being played by a Host in skeletal form, until the Host pulls away and the piano continues playing. Is the music different if the piano is played by a machine instead of a person? Do we perceive it differently? What if we don’t know a machine is playing the piano? Can AI compose a symphony? Can AI perform a jazz improvisation in the style of Keith Jarrett? Should we want it to?
I don’t have an answer to these questions except the last one, and I am definitely not interested in AI-generated music or anything else. My ears are probably not sophisticated enough to tell the difference, but I have to believe my heart would be a little emptier.
The Creative Life Adventure 