Damon Lindelof and Tara Hernandez weren't thinking about humanlike chatbots or hallucinating algorithms when they hatched the idea for a TV series about a powerful artificial intelligence that entranced users around the world.
It was early 2020 and they were thinking about what we all were: Do I really need to decontaminate my Amazon packages, or wear a mask when I walk to the mailbox?
Talking on a phone while they walked their dogs, Hernandez quipped that she wished there was an app that could just tell them what to do. That got them to talking, Lindelof recalls: "I wish that that existed too. But I wouldn't trust it, because all the apps that exist on my phone are there to sell me things. What would a benevolent app look like? And what would it take for me to trust it?"
