Talks to Watch

Westworld — If you can't tell, does it matter?

33K views · Feb 26, 2020 · 0:16 · 0 HN recommenders · 3 mentions · discussed 2022–2026

A very short clip from the TV series Westworld about whether it matters if you cannot tell a human from an artificial being.

Why Hacker News points people here: HN invokes it as a quick reference in discussions of AI-generated content and indistinguishable AI output.

What Hacker News said 3

Cites ithumpday69May 2022

“Well if you can't tell, does it matter?”

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> An erotic novelist has their human brain and human instincts to guide them in writing their work. An ML agent trained on all the erotic novels written, weighted by critical and popular success would might be quite capable of generating sequels, "original" stories, or even stories bespoke to each reader. Good Will Hunting suggests first-hand experience is irreducible: "You can't tell me what it smells like in the Sistine Chapel." link To which Westworld counters: "Well if you can't tell, does it matter?" this video I think the cowboys have it. For the moment though, it's still up to humans to decide how this plays out.

in “DeepMind: A Generalist Agent” · view on HN
Cites itlittlecranky67May 2026

“is such a perfect fit for the whole creative AI industry discussion”

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One of my favorite dialogues from Westworld [0] is such a perfect fit for the whole creative AI industry discussion: Are you real? - If you can't tell, does it matter? [0]: this video

in “YouTube to automatically label AI-generated videos” · view on HN
JokenextaccounticDec 2022

“cue Westworld”

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There's the quality of the written commentary (which is all that matters for anyone only reading, never posting on HN) and the quality of the engagement of people that do write comments (which include how much their learned, the emotions they had, and other less tangible stuff) I think HN is optimizing for the former quality aspects and not the latter. So in that sense, if you can't tell if it's written by a bot, does it matter? (cue Westworld this video )

in “Should HN ban ChatGPT/generated responses?” · view on HN