Taylor Duffy - Westworld



12/11


I have been watching this show on HBO called "Westworld." The show is about a park people can visit, almost like Disney World for adults. The park is full of robots that talk, act, and look exactly like real humans. People that visit the park can go adventures, have sex with the robots, and kill the robots. Things start to get messy when the robots start to become self aware.


This made me think about Baudrillard's simulacra/simulation. The robots were a simulation of humans. At first they could merely replicate human actions and were programmed with things they could say. Eventually they started to think on their own and make their own decisions. "I think therefore I am." They were no longer just a simulation. Does this mean that they are now a simulacra? Can a simulation become a simulacra?

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