The Hosts (Westworld)
Westworld is a show that raises a lot of questions about out relationship with machines: is cruelty to robots actually cruelty? What does it mean to “be human?” And perhaps most importantly, what’s in the bots’ brain goo? What isn’t ambiguous—at least as far the show’s creators are concerned—is that these AI-based bots do have some degree of free will. They have memories. They remember past suffering they’ve endured (and trust me, on this show, there’s a lot of that). Overtime, they develop freedom of choice, form relationships, attempt rebellion, and so on.
Whether or not “free will” and “sentience” must go hand-in-hand is up to interpretation, but at the very least, these bots have more of an inner life than something like LaMDA.
