Westworld at 50: Michael Crichton’s bleak vision of AI remains chilling

The 1973 original is an efficiently unsettling prediction of the horrors that artificial intelligence would bring

Welcome to Westworld! It’s a whole town from the 19th-century American west, immaculately recreated for your enjoyment and populated with hyper-lifelike robot inhabitants – an amusement experience so immersive Disneyland should close its mousy-eared gates in resigned humiliation.

There are saloons and brothels, and a bank perfect for a daring robbery. There’s also sex – wild, unhinged, avant garde sex – available on demand …

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