This Late 2000s AI Series Was More Terrifying Than Westworld

The legacy of Western World It's a mixed bag, especially after it was unceremoniously canceled by the new regime at Warner Bros. Discovery. Jonathan Nolan and Lisa Joy's HBO drama used their reboot of Michael Crichton's 1973 film of the same name to examine questions of artificial intelligence, sentience, and what it means to be a person. However, the 2009 series from controversial producer Joss Whedon Dollhouse started from a similar premise but ultimately examined these themes in a more terrifying way.

More than a century of fiction examines the concept of artificial intelligence, beginning with the 1889 novel The wreck of the world by Reginald Colebrooke Reade. Typically, the story is about science fiction technology that somehow gains sentience. Although there are exceptions, such as Jonathan Nolan's Person of interestsentient AI becomes resentful and rebels against its organic masters. Dollhouse approached his story from a different angle. There is still a science fiction machine that involves programming a consciousness into existence, but it remains simply a tool. The machine uploads these consciousnesses into human beings who then awaken. As with the park in Western WorldThese dolls are used to fulfill the fantasies and desires of very wealthy human clientsFurthermore, like the HBO series, the company providing this service has a much more nefarious goal for its technology, specifically regarding immortality.

How Dollhouse and Westworld Tackle Similar Themes of Identity

The different interpretations of artificial intelligence in the series ask the same questions

Between Western World AND DollhouseThe first show takes a much more direct approach to its central moral questions. Humans, at least most of them, see the Westworld hosts as technologically more advanced versions of AI assistants. You can converse with them, ask them to do tasks, and even play games (of a certain kind) with them. However, like Siri, Alexa, or other similar programs, no reasonable person would think of the hosts as sentient beings. People feel no more guilty about what happens to them than players do about killing Kaidan or Ashley in Mass effect.

While the consciousness they are imprinted with is, in fact, artificial, they are composed of pieces of “millions” of real brain scans. This is because Rossum, the parent company, is a leader in medical brain scan technology. This is established in the first aired episode of DollhouseEliza Dushku's character, Echo, is equipped with a mix of skills to handle a kidnapping and ransom exchange. By chance, one of the kidnappers involved had kidnapped and nearly killed one of the real humans whose brain scans were used to create this artificial person.

Unlike
'The World of West'
guests, in
Dollhouse
A key strength of the service is that the dolls, called “active”, are 100% real human beings.

In Western Worldwhen they are not active in the park, hosts are treated like objects, thrown into bins and treated like broken down cars. When the Dollhouse the actives are not in an “engagement”, they are cared for in a spa-like environment. The guests are unconscious or “turned off” like machines. The actives are given a childlike imprint that makes them pleasant, docile and completely helpless. Yet, just like the most special guests in Western Worldsome of these actives retain memories, make friends and even childhood romances. For both hosts and actives, the people they pretend to be are not who they really are. I am.

Dollhouse suffered from the demands and limitations of broadcast TV.

Dollhouse failed to break the boundaries that HBO's Westworld did.

Dollhouse in brief

Leaving aside the personal failures of creator Joss Whedon, Dollhouse suffers because of his place on network television. Since when Western World was on HBO was not without its nudity, explicit sex, and violence. However, the writers and directors utilized these elements in ways that underscored its themes of dehumanization and exploitation. Dollhouse did the same things, just in FCC-compliant ways. Ironically, this led to scenes and situations more designed to titillate rather than offer the kind of juxtaposition found in Western World. This was a systemic problem for broadcast series increasingly forced to compete with cable, over which the FCC has no power. Ironically, where Dollhouse as far as morality goes, it falls into tired and all-too-common stereotypes.

Olivia Williams' Adele DeWitt, who runs the Los Angeles house, is shown as desperate for her romantic engagements with Enver Gjokaj's Victor, who is modeled after the jet-setting playboy “Roger.” When the men at the Dollhouse hire actives, it's presented differently. Even among the clients, there may be a streak of sweetness or morality, but not always. Although the Dollhouse supposedly caters to the obscenely wealthy, one client is a college literature professor. He's drawn Echo into a fantasy in which she becomes a boring but curious student who falls in love with him.

Sci-fi enhancements aside, he believes she is a consensual prostitute. He is neither lecherous nor predatory with Echo, even though she breaks off the engagement early. The professor's treatment of Echo would be practically saintly if she were a Western World guest. However, the most moral characters in Dollhouse looking at the professor with contempt because “he can't convince one of his students to sleep with him.” Western World would use the nuanced ethical dilemmas about power imbalances and consent between Echo and a real student to challenge its viewers. Dollhouse They ignored it altogether, instead using the character of Echo and the professor to create some comedy.

Dollhouse and Westworld are warnings about the corporate greed that is destroying humanity.

In both series, artificial intelligence is not the enemy: people are.

The dominant interpretation of artificial intelligence is the one found in Terminator film series or The matrix. AI, for one reason or another, decides that humanity must be eliminated. Artificial intelligences in both Western World AND Dollhouse I am not, specifically, the enemy. In both Western World AND Dollhouse AIs that become self-aware are simply struggling for their own identity. DollhouseRossum is significantly worse than Western WorldDelos, if only because everyone involved knows that their technology is being applied to real people.

Delos doesn't get the host's permission to put them in its parks because they are seen as machines that only emulate sentience. Part of the appeal of the Dollhouse is that an active is a real human with an artificial but fully sentient consciousness. Rossum tells her customers and employees that people who agree to become actives do so with consent. While the series hasn't made it clear that this isn't entirely true, there would still be ethical questions about personhood as in Separation. There are many Rossum employees and customers who do not consider the assets as “real people” despite all the obvious signs to the contrary..

Neither of the two Dollhouse nor Western World have been able to fully explore the consequences of vile capitalists creating their own versions of AI slavery. However, Dollhouse came close with two episodes, “Epitaph One” and “Epitaph Two: The Return.” The technology used to erase people's personalities and imprint them on them was weaponized and nearly destroyed the world. Dollhouse offers a far more terrifying vision of the dehumanization and destructiveness of greed and unethically controlled technology than Western World could ever. While the series finale offers a sort of “happy ending,” what follows is still, conceptually, a nightmare world to live in.

Both series turn their AI rebels into superheroes

Dollhouse is often unfairly overlooked compared to Westworld

While critical review aggregators on the Internet may be questionable, Western World edges out Dollhouse among critics and users on most of them. Part of this may be due to things like budget, their network support, and of course, the talent of the main narrators. However, Both are equally unique dramatic examinations of “artificial” sensibility, meditations on identity, corporate greed and human depravity that are more unrecognized than they are recognized.. In Western World the guests' personalities almost always come as a shocking surprise to humans. Everyone involved in DollhouseFrom employees to customers, they enter their agreements knowing that the goods are human beings.

Dollhouse It also presents a more stark moral dilemma for its corporate associates than Western WorldDelos. What appears to be the sensitivity of the Actives is, at first, presented as a mistake by their science fiction genius Topher (Fran Kanz). He even uses his skills with technology to try to help the Actives, especially with mental illness or injury. Whether it's helping a grieving mother come to terms with the loss of her child or “curing” a veteran's PTSD, Topher initially believes he is helping these people. He justifies any potential exploitation (which, if he does his job well, the Actives will never remember) because he believes he is offering them a better, healthier life.

Originally, Dollhouse was supposed to unfold its full story over a five-season span, Alan Sepinwall reported in 2009. Instead, Fox gave it 26 episodes, two of which did not air on the network. Western World didn't get its proper ending, however. However, like another HBO series, Game of Thrones, DollhouseThe ending ultimately felt rushed and unearned, especially for Harry Lennix’s Boyd Langton. It almost makes the series all the more effective in making viewers think about the complex themes central to both series. They’re left to fill in the gaps (or even rewrite the ending) using their own, entirely human, imaginations.

Dollhouse is available on DVD, Blu-ray, Digital, and streaming on The CW app, while Westworld is available on Blu-ray, Digital, and streaming on Tubi TV.