James Marsden on artificial intelligence: With power comes great responsibility

James Marsden

SINGAPORE—The acclaimed HBO sci-fi series, “Westworld,” may have wrapped up recently, but that’s no reason to fret, James Marsden told the Inquirer when we chatted with him early this month. Our parting questions for him:

What are your thoughts about artificial intelligence (AI)? There’s a quote that says it all: With great power comes great responsibility. That’s what we should keep in mind when it comes to the future of artificial intelligence. There are smarter people out there who know its potential more than we do.

In the age of social media, I’m wary about people becoming too dependent on technology. At some point, everything’s going to be done for us automatically, through a program or an algorithm—and that’s scary, because who knows where that could go? Having said that, I can’t even get Siri to follow my voice commands (laughs), so I don’t worry so much about that just yet.”

Season One of “Westworld” just wrapped up. It’s said that we’ll only see Season Two in 2018. Won’t your followers lose interest if the series makes them wait that long? It took us two years to finish Season One. We hit some hiccups and bumps along the way, mainly because we were going too fast. In an effort to avoid those bumps, we’re going to take our time and get the scripts perfect first, as (coproducer) JJ Abrams wants them to be.

From someone who loves quality filmmaking, my perspective is, I never believe that something great happens easily. So, I hope the audience will understand that we want Season Two to be a well-oiled machine. It’d be a mistake to deliver it too soon when it isn’t ready, because the last thing you want is to let the audience down.—RITO ASILO