It seems to be easy to hack humans: 'Westworld' co-creator

"Westworld" co-creator Lisa Joy says it seems to be very easy to hack humans.

"Westworld", an American science fiction show, has completed two seasons.

Talking about the interesting things that happened during the second season, Joy said in a statement to IANS: "Everybody, when they're talking about new technologies, has the big fear, what if those technologies get hacked. And, I think the thing that has sprung to my mind, as a more pressing fear, is what if those technologies hack humans? Because it seems to be very easy to hack humans.

"We maybe aren't as complicated as we seem, and recently, we've all been looking at media and the changing face of media, and social media, specifically. In 'Westworld', it's about hosts who have this elaborate fake reality programme and fake backstories and everything, and they're taught to believe a lie.

"Turns out all you need is a Facebook feed with some Russian interference and you could start believing lies yourself, as a human. We are more susceptible to manipulation through technology than we ever thought possible."

The show is about female robots who are victims of sexual violence. They later lead a resistance.

Is it possible to make a show that isn't influenced by the larger political context, like the #MeToo movement?

"It was possible for us because we'd written the second season before all that happened. Well the election happened while we were writing, but everything else hadn't. And the election didn't surprise me. The outcome did not surprise me. We've been alive before these things happened," said Joy.

"Just because something becomes discussed widely in culture, that doesn't mean it just happened - it was just the moment where culture en masse started talking about it. But people have always talked about these issues. Maybe sometimes not in the open, maybe it was too taboo, but art, literature, fiction, has always been a way of exploring the things that maybe people weren't ready yet to talk about, but the truths were there, sometimes the ugly truths."

So that was what they were doing.

"We were looking at human nature. And you cannot examine human nature truthfully, without acknowledging that some of it isn't so great. That there is injustice, that there is abuse," she said.

In order to truly understand something, you have to "take stock of where it's at".

Jonathan Nolan, co-creator of the show, said: "...The idea that culture puts on one face, but that actually underneath it, human behaviour is very, very compromised, and occasionally very ugly, is not new to our story.

"And, as I said, I think one of the advantages about writing something in the science fiction space is you get to talk a little bit about this world, but you get to talk about it at right angles. You don't have to deal with, the, the precise gory details of the here and now. But we do get to talk about human behaviour. And why we're so f**king broken."

Seasons one and two of "Westworld" air in India on Star World.

--IANS

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