Arnold As AI and The Incident

Published May 4, 2018 · Updated July 6, 2022

Hi guys,

I know there’s a snowball’s chance of getting this on the telegraph given the timing, but I just finished the Deep Dive and absolutely love Big D’s Arnold-as-AI Hypothesis, but more specifically, the version where Arnold is AI and the “incident” was the virtual destruction of that AI by Dolores.

In fact, I think if you analyze the Incident at Escalante through the Arnold-as-AI perspective, it makes more sense than the Arnold-as-Human version of the story.

The Incident with Arnold as a Human

The Story: Dolores, with the help of and at the behest of Arnold, murders all of the hosts in the Park and ultimately kills Arnold, a human man.

The Implications of Killing the Hosts: None. Hosts kill each other all the time. Bandits kill the sherif, bounty hunters kill the bandits, etc. This means so little that you almost have to wonder why it was a necessary part of Arnold’s plan to shut down the park….

The Implications of Killing Arnold, a Human Man: From a PR Perspective, HUGE. Headlines reading “Rogue AI Kills Creator” would be front-page stuff. This would be incredibly hard to cover up, Arnold’s family could get involved, and Delos would (likely) pull its investment. But maybe Ford covered it all up – fine. From a Technical Perspective, though, this is meaningless. Dolores didn’t go off her programming or off the rails – she literally followed a voice command (“These violent delights…”). From a Technical Perspective, the headline may as well be “Gun Fires Bullet when Trigger Pulled and Safety Off.” So in his “master plan” to shut down the Park, Arnold either: 1) greatly underestimated his longtime partner’s ability to cover things up; 2) did not think through the technical implications of his actions; or 3) both. Doesn’t sound like Arnold to me…

The Incident with Arnold as AI

The Story: Dolores destroys all of the hosts in the park and then destroys the virtual AI, Arnold. Arnold, Ford’s creation and the real creator of the original 47 hosts in the Park, is gone, leaving Ford alone to fix and bring back online all of the hosts. This severely handicaps Ford’s ability to open the park (though, despite Arnold’s intent, Ford did succeed).

The Implications of Killing the Hosts: Arnold has Dolores do this so that after his “death”, only Ford and his team will be left to clean up the mess. Arnold created and programmed the hosts, not Ford. Arnold believes that Ford and his team will be unable to effectively bring all of the hosts back online, thus stopping the Park from opening. Arnold gets this wrong – seeing as Ford pulled it off – but at least now there is a real reason with real stakes for Dolores killing all of the hosts.

The Implications of Killing Arnold, an AI: Huge. Arnold is, under this theory, the true creator of the hosts. He’s be teaching/helping Ford and his team to work with and understand his creations, but prior to his death, Arnold did most of the heavy lifting. Without him to make more hosts and maintain the current ones, Arnold assumes Ford and his team will fail to open the Park. Again, Arnold miscalculates, but was nearly correct – Ford admits he was just barely able to pull it off.

Overall, the Incident at Escalante and Arnold’s “suicide” at the hands of Dolores makes more sense when viewed from the perspective as Arnold as AI, lending some additional creedence to your theory.

Ken Listwak

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