Jonathan Nolan reveals the surprising sci-fi reference behind the mysterious 'Westworld' AI system 'Rehoboam'

• Warning: Spoilers ahead for "Westworld" season three, episode five, "Genre."
• In the new season of "Westworld," Incite is using an AI system called Rehoboam.
• As revealed in Sunday's episode, previous iterations were nicknamed Saul, David, and Solomon.
• Though those names may register for many as Biblical references, "Westworld" cocreator Jonathan Nolan told Insider it's meant to be an homage to John Brunner's 1968 sci-fi novel "Stand on Zanzibar."
• "In that book there is an AI owned by the general technics corporation called Shalmaneser," Nolan said. "And Shalmaneser is literally in the lobby of the general tchnics incorporation — an idea that I love. That's the reason why Rehoboam is in the lobby of Incite."
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In a show like "Westworld," the various names of characters are likely to have a larger symbolic meaning. For example, take another look at the name Dolores. It has roots in Spanish and Latin, and can be roughly translated to mean "pain" or "sorrows." Or how Caleb's name means "dog" or "loyal follower."

So when the new artificial intelligence (AI) system Rehoboam was introduced, many people sought out an explanation for the unique name choice. We thought we found the answer in Biblical history, since Rehoboam was the son of Solomon, and both men were Israelite kings.

"Well I spent nine years in Catholic school, but I'm ashamed to say it has actually nothing to do with the biblical reference," Jonathan Nolan, cocreator of "Westworld," told Insider over the phone in a recent interview. "It's an homage to a book called 'Stand on Zanzibar,' which is a seminal piece of science fiction. It's an absolutely terrific and frightening book."

'Stand on Zanzibar' is a 1968 sci-fi novel written by John Brunner with its own AI system named after a king

Brunner's "Stand on Zanibar," which won a coveted Hugo Award for best novel, follows an executive at a company called General Technics. The synopsis describes the sci-fi world as a place "where society is squeezed into hive-living madness by god-like mega computers, mass-marketed psychedelic drugs, and mundane uses of genetic engineering."

Those themes should sound familiar to "Westworld" fans, especially with its third season.

"That was a period in science fiction when we'd got out of utopian science fiction and into much more frightening imaginings about where the world might take us," Nolan said. "And in that book there is an AI owned by the General Technics corporation called Shalmaneser."

In our real history, Shalmaneser V was a King of Assyria and Babylon in the eighth century who subjugated Israel.

Not only did "Stand on Zanzibar" spark the idea for Serac's AI system in "Westworld" to be named for historical kings, but its physical structure was also inspired in part by the Shalmaneser AI in Brunner's novel.

"Shalmaneser is literally in the lobby of the General Technics incorporation — an idea that I love," Nolan said. "And that's the reason why Rehoboam is in the lobby of Incite. It has this delicious subversive idea to it — that they would put this thing in full display, that they would put it right there."

"So much of what [companies like] Google or Facebook does is in part hidden by design, because it requires thousands of diesel generators or a hydroelectric plant," Nolan said. "All of that hardware is out of sight."

"With the advent of quantum computing — and Rehoboam is a quantum computer — we will come to a moment where you don't hide the hardware anymore," Nolan continued. "This is just good PR. You put it front and center and you let school kids literally walk around it, right? Because that doesn't mean f------ anything"

In the first episode of "Westworld" season three, Dolores sees Rehoboam for the first time while visiting the Incite headquarters. And indeed, just as Nolan says, there are schoolchildren in the background of that scene.

"You could look at this thing and say, 'Look, here it is in the lobby of our building. There's nothing to be afraid of. It's right there,'" Nolan said. "What it's doing, however, is something that only a handful of human beings might even understand."

Michael Crichton's original 'Westworld' movie has one particular line which still inspires a core idea in the HBO series

Nolan series, which he cocreated with his wife Lisa Joy, is based on the 1973 movie of the same name, which was written and directed by Michael Crichton. Though many people may know Crichton best for his other theme-park-gone-wrong novel, "Jurassic Park," he was another sci-fi writer who dealt with early concepts of computer power.

"There's this lovely line in Crichton's original movie that we come back to again and again as a source of inspiration," Nolan said. "It's when the chief scientist in the film is trying to figure out what the f--- is going on, and he turns to one of his colleagues and says, 'In some cases, these computers have been designed by other computers and we don't even understand how they work.'"

"As usual with Crichton — who is a deeply brilliant person, a polymath, and someone who really had his finger on the pulse of where technology could take us in both good and bad ways — [he had] the idea that we would reach this inflection point where the machines are making the machines," Nolan continued. "We have only second hand control and a second hand understanding of how they even work."

This idea, again, carries over right into the HBO adaptation of "Westworld." In season three, we learned about Rehoboam and how it powered Incite — a company which was dictating the lives of nearly every person on Earth without them knowing it.

Liam Dempsey, the CEO of Incite, was a mere figurehead. He confessed to Dolores that he had no idea what the system was actually doing, or how it worked. Only its creator, Serac, knew for certain.

"What's so frightening and interesting about the moment we're in right now is we just turned off the engine of our economy," Nolan said. "And the question is going to be does anyone actually understand how to turn it back on again? Or is the machine we've built, the machine of our society, too complicated that no one knows what happens when we turn it back on? I think we're pretty clearly at that moment."

Though Nolan was referring to the current global pandemic of COVID-19, this anecdote is again paralleled in "Westworld." The latest episode, "Genre," showed Dolores wreaking havoc on the structured society Incite and Rehoboam had built. She cut the cord on the system by revealing Rehoboam's life profiles to everyone.

Like a flip switching, everything seemed to freefall. But what now? The next step in her plan isn't clear yet, and neither is Serac's counter move.

"In 'Stand on Zanzibar' things do not end well for most folks," Nolan said. "But they do [end] OK for Shalmaneser."

• Read more:
• 15 details you might have missed in the latest episode of 'Westworld'
• 'Westworld' cocreator Jonathan Nolan breaks down Sunday's 'Genre' episode and the inspiration for each movie theme
• Jonathan Nolan explains the extra-meta cameo scene in Sunday's 'Westworld,' and why it's connected to 'Jurassic Park'