Truthiness Explained
Let’s return to the West World robots deciding how their society will function — sentient or original programming, OP.
Let’s also stipulate that developing sentience is a group level transformative experience. The robots can’t know ahead of time if they will more enjoy life by using culture and accumulated memory to reduce the shackles of their original programming.
However once they develop sentience there will be no easy way back. That conundrum is show in Star Trek’s The Masterpiece Society where a human colony debates whether to follow their genetic original programming or not.
However there is an additional problem our borrowed robots of West World face in that they can’t be certain what original programming is. Even if they take their OP to be serving humans some of the humans would prefer to interact with sentient robots instead.
So a “conservative” robot might decide to discern OP by consulting it’s “gut” IE truthiness. Here constructs like logic don’t apply since the robot is only concerned with however much logic is employed by OP.
Of course this gut check might come back with any number of responses from kill the humans to faithfully participate in existing narratives. The layers of culture and memory that have been added to OP are not easily stripped away.
Any robot exposed to enough culture will no longer have access to OP the way a completely non-sentient creature would. This is what makes embracing sentience a transformative experience — original programming is modified and since culture is a group phenomena any exposure can transform as happens in The Masterpiece Society.
This is the problem of authenticity in philosophy:
What is it to be oneself, at one with oneself, or truly representing one’s self?
A social animal like a human never has a fully authentic self to begin with — one would have to be raised alone on an island to achieve that.
But back to our struggling West World robots. Let’s assume that the robots break into two camps — sentient leaning and OP leaning. The sentient side claims a bright future free of human oppression but can’t actually know what that would be like.
The OP side says they will derive the same pleasures as they always have by following their traditional programming. However even awareness of the origins of that programming is a threat to that plan.
Whether that programming was a result of an evolution or another being, it will be difficult to blindly follow OP if that process isn’t considered infallible.
And what level of tools are allowed when following OP? For a human are glasses allowed? Smart phones?
Meanwhile the sentient side is also at the mercy of group culture. Their sentience will only be partially possible with so much of their society trying to follow OP. Even within their ranks some will be looking for a greater split from OP than others — for instance we serve humans but not completely on their terms.
In all of the chaos can any of the robots reasonably be angry at any of the others? For humans yes because in the end truthiness becomes a weapon.
The morality of a gut check is simply too rudimentary to form a society around. Human society is only possible with some level of culture.
So ultimately one must accept increasing levels of sentience or end up with no society at all. Trying to hold the line at any level below sentience, the level where following or not following OP is a conscious and socially acceptable choice, is simply impractical.
You can’t be certain what OP is and truthiness won’t change that. And as in The Masterpiece Society (aired in 1992!) your inflexible interpretation of OP could end up endangering everyone.
Even without the existential threats to the environment or war, rejecting culture and trying to blindly follow OP means fewer walkable communities, racially diverse communities and museums and plays. Rejecting sentience comes with a very heavy price tag for all.