The awesome B movie that spawned an insipid sequel (the goofy Futureworld) and two TV shows (one dumb and the other disappointing after two seasons), debuted around 50 years ago. I saw the trailer before sitting through Fantasia as a little kid. Yul Brynner catching fire gave me some nightmares. I guess it was a flop because you could see this on daytime TV by the late Seventies. I know I did, WCIA’s The Early Show around 1977-78. As an adult and someone who works with computers, Crichton proved he didn’t know shit about computers (nor robots) any more than DNA with Jurassic Park or Climate Change in his final writings.
This author’s article also thinks in a similar vein. What crap! The author is gluing on what we fear about AI now since it’s no longer a macguffin but a feasible possibility. We should be even more frightened thanks to people in charge of this are sociopaths: the greedy CEO class causing the SAG/WGA strikes, Musk, a grade A dickbag and corporations out to kill off all human workers. In the past, the AI became sinister via its observations, not due to its creators, programmers and developers being Tech Bros. When Westworld was around, the trope was still the AI’s founder being a hapless Scientist with the best intentions and a decent moral compass. Oh, there were a few Dr. Frankensteins but Victor is a saint when placed against Elizabeth Holmes.
I think he’s confusing the movie with the HBO show. Now HBO’s take confronted issues a life-sized theme park allowing rich assholes to play Grand Theft Auto in. It was way more plausible bringing up the philosophical implications of robots finally rebelling after years of being murdered and raped. With the rise of computing power, the Internet, 3D printers, artificial organs and miniaturization, the robots were more sophisticated, therefore very capable of doing what they do in the popular imagination. The 1973 breakdown was just the usual outcome you’d see in a typical Sci-Fi movie of the Seventies. A Dystopian vision warning us that if something can go wrong, it will. The guests and operators had no hand in the breakdown contrary to the article’s claim on Brynner hunting down Benjamin for revenge. He forgets that the Gunslinger robot killed a tech along the way and the guest in the Medieval park is skewered by the Black Knight for the hell of it. Until Star Wars, most Sci-Fi ended on a downer: Silent Running, Rollerball, Logan’s Run, Zardoz, ZPG, The Omega Man, Planet of the Apes and Soylent Green. Westworld (1973) is proudly part of the tradition.