Jonathan Nolan on the HBO drama’s all-too-likely new world: ‘We’re on a very dangerous path.’
But it’s also been for us an exploration of the technological and cultural moment we find ourselves in.
And for people paying attention, Facebook was always slightly terrifying.
That is not the case anymore.
That is not how anyone feels anymore.
It’s been fascinating to be making a show in the midst of that.
We’ve been in charge on this planet for a very long time.
It’s something that is acutely felt in the world.
There are unintended consequences of essentially unbridled unregulated technological development.
We’ve been trapped in the park answering these questions and wanted to escape that.
Our characters are in a world that’s a linear extension of the world we’re in now.
Sure, there have been global, political, transformative events, but it’s basically a straight line.
It’s not just about where you work and the product.
You help create the political opinions and the way you interact with your friends and your loved ones.
It’s the shape of culture and society around you.
So we’re clearly on a very dangerous path.
And the show now gets the chance to explore what happens 30 years down that path.
What does it look like if we keep going in the direction we’re going?
There’s this wonderful term you’ve used, “algorithmic determinism.”
1oo percent, and it’s a feedback loop between the two.
This is part of the problem.
We grew up watching four broadcast networks and UHF.
There’s a problem with an algorithmically determined world, the Netflix effect.
That’s very dangerous.
Life has a certain amount of messiness to it, a certain amount of chaos.
A lot of the ideas behind these technologies are to chart a course through the chaos.
That’s obviously a good thing in many ways, but it’s a little frightening.
You don’t really go onto these platforms and only watch the shows they recommend you watch.
You don’t go online and only buy things that are advertised to you.
What’s Delos up to in the wake of their rather terrible PR disaster?
What’s the math on that?
A couple of hundred people dead.
Well, let’s, let’s keep fing around for another six months.
Maybe if a couple of hundred more people die, we’ll actually take action.
But, yes, the folks at Delos are trying to figure out how to “pivot.”
And the fact that it took two crashes before they pulled the plane.
It’s a horrible situation.
It is also a pretty appropriate metaphor for the moment we’re in right now.
We have a semiautomatic society.
For instance, news curation.
[Freedom of the press] is a right guaranteed by the Constitution.
This is something we fought for for a very long time.
We understand how important that is.
We’re now in a moment where there was no editorial control over the news at all.
That’s a fing disaster.
We have the devested and devolved things that were difficult, complicated, or legally problematic to the algorithm.
The idea is that in 30 years the truth will be very expensive and very narrowly distributed.
For two seasons, we’ve been wondering about Dolores' world.
Now she gets a chance to visit our world.
We’re now getting her perspective looking at the world going, “What a sshow.”
We thought the world of the hosts was bad and overly regulated.
She says the line, I think it’s episode 4.
She’s like, “I thought your world would be so different.
There’s no fing difference.”
Yet you still spend some time in a park.
You have Warworld in the trailer.
What’s going on there?
How does Aaron Paul fit in?
We always knew we wanted to spend time with a human being this season.
First and foremost we wanted to explore the world of the host.
But you might’t just bag on humanity the entire run of the show.
Maybe you could, but I’m not sure the show would last very long.
Humanity hasn’t really had their chance to put their best forward.
I think a lot of us are wondering what the f happens next.
It’s clear we’re on some kind of ascent phase of the curve.
Things are moving very quickly.
There’s a global sense of unease.
There’s a quote from an author I love.
I think we’re all feeling that.
The question of where this goes, I don’t think anyone has an answer.
History has a mind of its own.
