Westworld made waves this fall as the single most watched first season of a television series in HBO history. Its success stemmed from a combination of heartbreak, thrill and confusion that had viewers on the edge of their seats and constantly guessing the showrunners next move. And now that the first tour is complete, a broader discussion could be had on the possibility of a real Westworld park.
We know various companies are exploring opportunities in artificial intelligence, machine learning and other technologies that could potentially produce a high functioning robot, but only a select few could replicate both the intricacies of the park or its leader Dr. Ford. They could include IBM (NYSE:IBM), Tesla (NASDAQ:TSLA), Walt Disney Company (NYSE:DIS), Google (NASDAQ:GOOGL) and Amazon (NASDAQ:AMZN), all of which over time have been revolutionaries in their respective fields.
International Business Machines (NYSE:IBM) seemed like a no brainer given the success of Watson on the mainstage of Jeopardy. After Deep Blue lost its chess series with Garry Kasparov in the mid 90s, IBM would be on the lookout for its next big challenge. The researchers at IBM had their sights set on developing a system that could pass the Turing Test, meaning it could fool a human into believing they were having a conversation with another person.
Decades later, Watson was born and ready to take on the Jeopardy Challenge. As the story goes, the two former champions it faced that night stood no chance against the cognitive and computer capabilities of Watson. Even after all these years, however, Watson was unable to pass the Turing Test, which Ford and Arnold’s creations did within the first year in Westworld. IBM still remains the frontrunner to deliver a Westworld like robot given the incredible strides it’s made with Watson and in this field as a whole.
While IBM might be the closest to developing a conscious machine, the park still needs an eccentric leader to run it, and that could most definitely be Elon Musk. After his dealings with PayPal (NASDAQ:PYPL), Musk moved on to create Tesla, Hyperloop and SpaceX, all of which push the boundary of transportation in 2016. While these endeavors haven’t always lived up to expectations, Musk is still good for a soundbite about a future that consists of aliens, Mars and human simulations. A real world Westworld could certainly use someone like Musk to deliver tantalizing monologues.
It wouldn’t be right to open up a theme park though without a helping hand from Disney. Disney continues to be a leader in this space with operations extending all around the world. The layout of a typical Disney park includes multiple destinations like Magic Kingdom and Epcot that offer visitors a variety of experiences. Similarly, the fictional setting of Westworld offers visitors the opportunity to explore multiple towns like like Sweetwater and Pariah. That said, Disney remains a family oriented business that wouldn’t involve themselves with the theatrics and violence of the Westworld park portrayed on the series. Disney used similar restraint in the past when it backed out of its bid for Twitter (NYSE:TWTR) due to the harassment issues on the service.
Other companies that could realistically pursue a Westworld like project include Amazon and Google. The services of Alexa and Google Home already incorporate well developed speech recognition, cognitive computing and artificial intelligence to detect voices. The early success of both products has fueled investments into developing more advanced voice technology that will likely shape the future of speech recognition. As far as a real life Westworld, don’t count out either Google or Amazon to pursue a completely farfetched project.
Westworld captured the attention of millions of viewers this Fall but those anxiously awaiting a real world robot filled theme park will have to wait a lot longer. The strides being made to produce a conscious machine is remarkable but is nowhere close to the level of complexity displayed on HBO’s hit show. If not for nothing, it would take a special company, like the ones mentioned above, to reach this milestone.