RE: ADSactly Tech News - Westworld, Androids and Startling Possibilities for the Future!
Westworld is definitely a unique view into a possible futuristic world, like you say it makes us wonder a lot about human nature. What holds us back from abusing other people - is it respect for other humans, or is it the fear of getting caught and punished? This also makes me wonder about the nature of psychopathy - do they view other humans, the way that humans view robots in Westworld? A scary thought for sure...
That said, the beginning stages of AI taking over aren't so scary or have such gray moral boundaries (I guess that's how it always starts?). In some cases, I wouldn't mind talking to a robot on the phone, in any case I prefer to use a visual interface like a web ui to manage a lot of my things anyway. Some people find it hard to understand me when I speak anyway... From a business perspective, it's probably a lot more efficient to have robots manage basic inquiries because it's 24/7, doesn't need extra training and doesn't get sick and ultimately it helps humans too. Plus humans in general probably hate working at those call centers anyway.
I guess it's also hard for me to imagine being troubled by AI and robots until they look and act so much like humans that sometimes I can't tell the difference, in person, from humans. So far, robots help us do a lot of manual, boring, maybe dangerous tasks that humans are better off not doing directly, and there's a lot of potential for growth in that area (self driving cars etc, I hate driving). But I don't necessarily see a utility purpose for robots to be Westworld-ified... Unless governments want a way to deal with the huge gender gaps in say China and India but that leads us down a rather funky train of thought, not too keen on thinking about that too much...