Real 'Westworld' Haptic Vests Better Than Fiction

Private military contractors wearing haptic vests in the show "Westworld." Credit: HBO Most of the HBO show "Westworld" focuses on artificial intelligence and android robots that seem indistinguishable from humans. But the show has also occasionally snuck in some real-world technology that seems futuristic enough to blend in with the science fiction setting. One example of such real technology in "Westworld" comes in the form of haptic vests that made their debut in the show's second season. Freeze all motor functions and turn back now if you want to avoid spoilers about the second season. All good? OK, you've been warned. Welcome to Westworld. With a full-blown killer robot revolution underway in Westworld and its sister theme parks, the Delos Corporation sends in heavily-armed private military contractors in an attempt to regain control. In the episode titled "Les Écorchés," the PMCs go into battle wearing special haptic vests that can transmit patterns of vibrations indicating the direction and possible location of nearby hosts. That idea that first came up during a "Westworld" writers' room brainstorming session with neuroscientist David Eagleman, an adjunct professor in the department of psychiatry & behavioral sciences at Stanford University, over a year ago. "Because the hosts are in a mesh network with each other and their locations are known, it seems like an obvious thing for private military contractors that drop in to be able to tell where they are," Eagleman says. The geolocation tracking is made possible in the show by the private military contractors tapping into the hosts' mesh network that allows the robots to wirelessly communicate with one another. That information about each host's location then gets transmitted to the vests worn by the humans, which appear to light up with red lights accompanying the vibrations warning of possible killer robot threats. What's more remarkable is that the "Westworld" haptic vests are based on real-life technology designed by Eagleman and his Palo Alto startup called NeoSensory that could help blind people "see" the real world and deaf people "hear" sounds through vibration patterns. Eagleman previously demonstrated the VEST (Versatile Extra-Sensory Transducer) technology during a March 2015 TED talk. "The idea is passing information to the brain via patterns of touch on the skin, and we can really pass any type of information stream in there," Eagleman says. "Over the next few years, we're going to continue finding out which things are the most useful." https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4c1lqFXHvqI