This caught my attention because this implies that the show takes place in some future setting and not current day. I find it hard to believe that this level of android/AI technology would have existed back in the 80's.

They've not said when this was taking place, but I thought it was a given this was taking place many decades if not centuries from now.
We can't create AI or androids that could be mistaken for human nor are we anywhere close to doing so.



The Jedi Master

What you say makes sense and it will be fun to find out assuming the show's producers choose to reveal that in the future.

Apparently while we will not see any other "worlds" this season, they may show one next year. They are not certain yet which it will be.

http://www.darkhorizons.com/will-westworld-go-to-other-worlds/



The Jedi Master

I presume the gunman in black more of a beta tester or a host with a operator ID to test the system periodically.

Interesting theory DaBBQ!


Something just occurred to me recently. How do the human guests at the park identify the other human guests from the android hosts? You'd think that having multiple human guests at the park with live firearms would have potential for disaster.

I got the impression that the Man in Black is a longtime, and apparently influential, guest. And that somehow he is unhappy with his real life, so that's why he is trying to find a permanent "home" for himself in the artificial world.

Apparently, whatever that "Maze" is, seems to him to be some sort of "Paradise" or maybe some form of a potential afterlife. Maybe it's a place for the "hosts" - or what they perceive to be their "souls" - to go to "take a break"?

Didn't the girl who showed that insecure guest around last episode tell him that he could not harm anyone he is not supposed to?

I guess the bullets are made from the same basic material /molecular structure as the "hosts", so they can only interact with their tissue. It's HBO, so...Dragons.

That would make sense.

Should we just start referring to the hosts as skinjobs or is it still too early?

They're closer to robots than the Cylons or replicants were.



The Jedi Master

I don't know. The WW hosts seem to be almost entirely composed of organic material. The human guests have sex with some of them after all.

Neither replicants nor Cylons would start behaving like Old Bill or Walter did in the pilot when they were malfunctioning. They would just act like crazy people. They also seemed to be impossible to reprogram or wipe. That's a major distinction.




The Jedi Master

My analogy would be they are like better looking (and more "humanly" acting) Datas with significantly less capable AI - and no positronic brain.

The question is, and I could imagine at some point they are going to show us, how close to humans the "hosts" actually are (like do they have working internal organs?), and how their bodies move: "mechanical" (artificial joints and servos) or "biological" (working bone structure/joints/cartilage, functional muscle tissue beyond fine movements like facial expressions)?

I like that analogy a lot!

And of course both the WW hosts and Data are "fully functional" too.

You do see the bodies "under construction" in those labs where they are interviewing the hosts. They appear to be made of tissue analogs, not actual tissue, as they're all white and don't look like a butcher's shop window.
It is likely there are advances in medical tech and whatever people use for artificial limbs/skin grafts is also used for the bots.



The Jedi Master

They are made with Play-dough, marshmallows.... and love.

Forgotten Weapons did an episode on Ed Harris somewhat unusual gun. The fact that it was reloaded with brass cartridges just after the the pre-Civil War time frame was mentioned made it stand out a bit. It doesn't bother me though.

So what did you guys think of the third episode?

So there's no doubt by now that a major theme of this show is how and why some of the hosts are evolving and becoming more human. Maybe this is being driven by a supernatural deity a la' Battlestar Galactica?

We always wondered why Kara vanished so abruptly...and to where.