Video Surveillance In WestWorld

gjulleen

I have been thinking of the criticism about the techs and other areas not having their video reviewed.  I think A.Ron pointed out that the garage would probably be as monitored as a Las Vegas Casino.

I agree that's probably the case, but how many people do they have monitoring the tape?  In a casino you have a room full of people watching banks of monitors, it is worth the investment of having people whose primary role is to keep an eye out for cheating or for dealers pocketing money because there is a serious risk of lost assets on the floor of a casino.

I think in most situations surveillance is kept as a retro-solution, you look at the tape if you find a problem.

I'm reminded of an accounting I saw on one of those true-story shows from the 90's (This is really Halloween appropriate):

There was a family who noticed their security camera was broken, it had fallen from its bracket and was damaged.  (Or so they thought).  They were going to just throw it away, because they all agreed they never really needed it, but one family member decided to fast-forward through the tape to see if he could figure out what broke the camera.  It had a tape that recorded through night-hours on a schedule and taped over itself weekly.  When he watched it **there was a guy who would crouch in the bushes every night and watch the family through a window**  Every night, he showed up on the tape.  The last date that was recorded had the guy look up, notice the camera, and knock it down.  It was extra creepy because it was only half-way through recording over the previous week's feed, so you got to watch a couple more nights of him creeping.

I'm just saying, if an issue comes up, they may review the garage footage or take a closer look at what the man in black is doing, but they ignored him until they noticed he killed a threshold number of hosts.  They probably aren't really looking at what the guests are doing.  If someone was watching the guests regularly they would probably be fired for being a voyeur.

Anyways, thought it was a spooky, fun point for this scary season

telephoneofmadness

I thought considering the garage is the place broken robots get taken to be fixed, security was way too lax. Surely that is the place where the robots are most likely to behave unpredictably, yet not a security guard in sight.

cbspock

I thought security was way to lax in the garage. As to video in the park itself, they seem to be able to follow the hosts. What is done with the video of the guests, is it stored or destroyed? Just think what could be done with footage of a person acting like a savage? It seems to me that sort of thing could be used against a person in the real world. 

gjulleen

That's why I think that they probably only review park footage if there is some sort of incident.  Maybe there are specific people authorized to review it.  You may have to have a high level clearance to view it.  I could see certain conditions (killing a dozen hosts) triggering a flag to mention it to someone higher up.  How crazy do you have to be to get a flag?

As for security in the garage, how much would they feel is necessary?  They probably back-ground check their employees and check surveillance if something goes wrong.  If stuff started going missing, if proprietary equipment started leaking to competitors or if mechanics reported something went wrong they probably have tapes to review.  Those guys didn't report it because they assumed they did something wrong and didn't want to get caught.  We're looking at what they probably consider the equivalent of picking a tomato slice off the ground, rinsing it and putting it on a burger.  They're probably fine with the fact they did it, but don't want their bosses to know.

However, are they going to watch hours of video of people hosing down god knows what off of androids?  I doubt it.

What would they be watching for on maintenance cameras?

Again, casinos have monitoring people because they stand to lose massive amounts of cash without being able to even verify they ever had it.  Why would they micro-watch people hosing off androids?

cbspock

The diagnostic areas and interview rooms should be wired for sound though. Telling one of the hosts to delete logs, or having a programmer do it should set off some flags. 

 

gjulleen

I completely agree that its wired, but you have to look (or listen) to something in order to see it.

If he leaves the logs on Delores, the next person to do maintenance will probably check them as part of the maintenance routine.

Unless someone is listening, big brother style to every word being said, I don't think it'll be an immediate issue.  Imagine listening to the recorded logs of a room where someone just talks to themselves, or sings bad music under their breath.  Or even people doing their normal job.  How many man-hours would it take of "Analytics, review last interaction with 'sheriff' character" to watch out for whatever minor sins might be being committed? 

I think in-show evidence that there's not constant monitoring is the tech kissing the robot that was powered down.  She waits until the other tech leaves and then does it.  I believe that was placed there specifically to demonstrate the level of observation.  She's sufficiently confident that no one is going to look at the tape and catch her. If you expect the very worst thing you miss will be a tech kissing a bot without clearance, you'll probably consider that reasonable shrinkage, and not waste one to god knows how many people (salary, housing, transportation, health insurance, whatever) to catch it.

There may be a point where they start to notice a threshold amount of weirdness, and then they may pull tapes and audio and review them -- I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't a huge plot point in the near future.

However, as long as no super-red flags pop up I think it will be silently recording, with no one watching or listening to catch these things.

ken hale

Regarding surveillance in Westworld, I find it odd sometimes when the techs zoom in on one particular host, like Mauve, when she's acting off, but then totally miss so much else in other hosts, like Dolores.  I'm paying close attention to when we see the techs watching a particular host on their little holo-ipads, because I'm becoming kind of convinced by the whole flashback theory.

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.

cbspock

akritenbrink said:

They are probably relying on some program in the hosts to let them know what's going on or to zoom in or whatever. Like maybe they have placed diagnostics on the hosts so that when something goes wrong, they get notified and they check in. But whatever is happening with Delores is under the radar because they've never programmed their system to look for it. Even in more mundane tech, you can't find a bug unless you are looking for it or a user runs across it. You just hope the system you use to look for it works so the user doesn't run across too many.

Maybe Delores doesn't get the attention because she is a side quest in the overall narrative, and maybe they know Bernard is interested in her, so the other techs leave her alone. 

Doctor_Nick

There's an interesting article in the NY Times today about body cameras on police and freedom of information acts and what an incredible time sink viewing the video to redact all that surveillance will be. Unless they have automated monitoring, which they really should have at this point given how smart these robots seem.

KingKobra

ken hale said:

Regarding surveillance in Westworld, I find it odd sometimes when the techs zoom in on one particular host, like Mauve, when she's acting off, but then totally miss so much else in other hosts, like Dolores.  I'm paying close attention to when we see the techs watching a particular host on their little holo-ipads, because I'm becoming kind of convinced by the whole flashback theory.

It would be near impossible to monitor everyone. Much like a casino they probably heavily rely on other sources to "watch" a particular host. Just because she's been made important to us doesn't mean she's important to them. It's much like the cameras in cities. They miss TONS, the only time they'll actually catch something is if they are randomly watching at that time or are notified by someone else.

Disclaimer, I've worked security for a Casino and did sit at the video bank for a night

Doctor_Nick

Except with the machine intelligence on display in this show, I doubt anyone has to watch video surveillance now. It would seem trivial to have computers monitoring everything at all times, capable of alerting humans to anomalies.

KingKobra said:

ken hale said:

Regarding surveillance in Westworld, I find it odd sometimes when the techs zoom in on one particular host, like Mauve, when she's acting off, but then totally miss so much else in other hosts, like Dolores.  I'm paying close attention to when we see the techs watching a particular host on their little holo-ipads, because I'm becoming kind of convinced by the whole flashback theory.

It would be near impossible to monitor everyone. Much like a casino they probably heavily rely on other sources to "watch" a particular host. Just because she's been made important to us doesn't mean she's important to them. It's much like the cameras in cities. They miss TONS, the only time they'll actually catch something is if they are randomly watching at that time or are notified by someone else.

Disclaimer, I've worked security for a Casino and did sit at the video bank for a night

KingKobra said:

ken hale said:

Regarding surveillance in Westworld, I find it odd sometimes when the techs zoom in on one particular host, like Mauve, when she's acting off, but then totally miss so much else in other hosts, like Dolores.  I'm paying close attention to when we see the techs watching a particular host on their little holo-ipads, because I'm becoming kind of convinced by the whole flashback theory.

It would be near impossible to monitor everyone. Much like a casino they probably heavily rely on other sources to "watch" a particular host. Just because she's been made important to us doesn't mean she's important to them. It's much like the cameras in cities. They miss TONS, the only time they'll actually catch something is if they are randomly watching at that time or are notified by someone else.

Disclaimer, I've worked security for a Casino and did sit at the video bank for a night

KingKobra

@Doctor_Nick while you "should" be correct, I'm not sure that the AI spreads that far. From what they have shown thus far, it seems they are monitoring, but only loosely. This seems mostly done by humans and we don't know what causes a "trigger alert". With Bernard handling Delores it might take something major for someone else to actually see what's going on. They may get into that minutea, if we may not see it for awhile.

bsmither

"I thought considering the garage is the place broken robots get taken to
be fixed, security was way too lax. Surely that is the place where the
robots are most likely to behave unpredictably, yet not a security guard
in sight."

I am thinking the exam rooms are way too big. Every exam I have had, the room is about 1/3 the size of a Westworld room.

Neither Ford nor Bernard flinch at all when Abernathy reaches out and grabs Ford. That was surprising to me based on my assertion that a Host would have only those subsystems energized/unlocked necessary for the exam. That is, note the limpness of their extremities in their seated posture.

ken hale

Doctor_Nick said:

There's an interesting article in the NY Times today about body cameras on police and freedom of information acts and what an incredible time sink viewing the video to redact all that surveillance will be. Unless they have automated monitoring, which they really should have at this point given how smart these robots seem.

Think about it, for every active law enforcement officer you could hire an equivalent number of couch potatoes to just watch them all day.  Twice as many jobs.  They should get on this immediately.

ken hale

Regarding the question of just how much of the host's behavior is monitored, I can't get past Teresa's line in the first episode, after the first sheriff goes on the fritz.  She says, "In the meantime, there's so much as an unscripted sneeze, I want to know about it."

How should I understand that line?  Simple hyperbole, a suggestion that they can closely monitor only hosts who are interacting with guests, or an implication that they could conceivably monitor, at least remotely, all host's actions at any time?

[Deleted User]

The user and all related content has been deleted.