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Post by TinDogPodcast on Apr 26, 2017 10:32:55 GMT
People need to stop making robots look like people. It's harder to hate a squat robot than a dishwasher Nah, I give you R2D2 and BB8 as evidence that you don't need people shaped robots/droids to find them friendly. Are star wars droids sentient? |
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Apr 26, 2017 13:11:22 GMT
Nah, I give you R2D2 and BB8 as evidence that you don't need people shaped robots/droids to find them friendly. Are star wars droids sentient? I reckon they are. |
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Post by theotherjosh on Apr 26, 2017 13:19:03 GMT
Nah, I give you R2D2 and BB8 as evidence that you don't need people shaped robots/droids to find them friendly. Are star wars droids sentient? The official word prior to the Disney acquisition and the relegation of everything not in the movies to secondary canon was that they were not. It's just a Chinese Room illusion. There is no actual governing intelligence, nothing that says "I Am I." Presumably that's an authorial decision to sidestep that ethical concerns of the heroes effectively owning a bunch of slaves. (Of course the renders the droid torture scene in Return even more ridiculous than it already was) I haven't read anything official post acquisition, but I assume it's the same case. |
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Post by TinDogPodcast on Apr 26, 2017 14:09:04 GMT
I was thinking of memory wipes or reprogramming imperial droids to become comic relefe
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Apr 26, 2017 14:20:38 GMT
Are star wars droids sentient? The official word prior to the Disney acquisition and the relegation of everything not in the movies to secondary canon was that they were not. It's just a Chinese Room illusion. There is no actual governing intelligence, nothing that says "I Am I." Presumably that's an authorial decision to sidestep that ethical concerns of the heroes effectively owning a bunch of slaves. (Of course the renders the droid torture scene in Return even more ridiculous than it already was) I haven't read anything official post acquisition, but I assume it's the same case. Well, it's a quiet sidestep  The "hero" droids are treated as "sentient" while the others aren't. And canon applies to more than just the movies, it's the two Filoni animated series, some comics and some novels as well as the films. Until they change their minds again. Holiday Special still isn't canon! |
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Post by elkawho on Apr 26, 2017 14:38:26 GMT
Are star wars droids sentient? The official word prior to the Disney acquisition and the relegation of everything not in the movies to secondary canon was that they were not. It's just a Chinese Room illusion. There is no actual governing intelligence, nothing that says "I Am I." Presumably that's an authorial decision to sidestep that ethical concerns of the heroes effectively owning a bunch of slaves. (Of course the renders the droid torture scene in Return even more ridiculous than it already was) I haven't read anything official post acquisition, but I assume it's the same case. That's a thin argument for non-sentience, especially with that torture scene and with the entirety of C3PO's personality. It becomes even more so after Rogue One. You can't tell me that K2's personality was programmed in, I just won't believe it. |
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Post by theotherjosh on Apr 26, 2017 14:51:58 GMT
Well, it's a quiet sidestep The "hero" droids are treated as "sentient" while the others aren't. And canon applies to more than just the movies, it's the two Filoni animated series, some comics and some novels as well as the films. Until they change their minds again. It's kind of neat. There used to be several levels of canon. Here it is summarized from the relevant portion of the article on canon from Wookieepedia. (As an aside, I love that that Star Wars wiki is called Wookieepedia) In descending order: G-canon was George Lucas Canon: the six Episodes and any statements by George Lucas. T-canon was television Canon: The Clone Wars TV series. Rebels would be here, but the system was discontinued before Rebels debuted. C-canon was Continuity Canon: Novels, comics, games, other cartoons. S-canon was Secondary Canon: Stuff that was optional. Mostly from older works that didn't quite fit in with the the vision of the Star Wars universe once they started worrying about continuity. D-Canon was Detours Canon: From the canceled Star Wars Detours comedy series. N-Canon was Non Canonical Works: Either hypothetical "What If?" stories or earlier stuff that was later explicitly contradicted by more canonical works. I took a look at the entries on droids while I was there, and it seems some droids could be upgraded with sentience programming, most of them weren't. Holiday Special still isn't canon! That's a bridge too far, sir! There is a little VCR that lives in my heart, and Bea Arthur sings on in there FOREVER! |
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Post by TinDogPodcast on Apr 26, 2017 15:04:33 GMT
I can feel a new thread comming on...
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Post by theotherjosh on Apr 26, 2017 15:24:46 GMT
The official word prior to the Disney acquisition and the relegation of everything not in the movies to secondary canon was that they were not. It's just a Chinese Room illusion. There is no actual governing intelligence, nothing that says "I Am I." Presumably that's an authorial decision to sidestep that ethical concerns of the heroes effectively owning a bunch of slaves. (Of course the renders the droid torture scene in Return even more ridiculous than it already was) I haven't read anything official post acquisition, but I assume it's the same case. That's a thin argument for non-sentience, especially with that torture scene and with the entirety of C3PO's personality. It becomes even more so after Rogue One. You can't tell me that K2's personality was programmed in, I just won't believe it.
I did a little more reading and it seems that there is no consensus.
I remember when my daughter was about seven years old, she was in tears because she couldn't prove that I existed outside of her imagination. That's a little young for a solipsistic crisis. I can't remember what I said to comfort her, but my first thought was, "Well, it's possible, but you're never going to know either way, so try not to worry about it too much."
(If I ever stop posting here, it's probably because she stopped believing in me.)
In such a case, where you can't be certain if the beings with which you're interacting are truly self-aware or just emulating it, the moral course of action is to treat them as if they are.
That leads to troubling issues in the Star Wars Universe, because everyone treats the droids as things rather than people. At best, they're pets. Droids could certainly pass the Turing Test, but so can sufficiently sophisticated real world chatbot. I like to think that there is some way to affirm sentience, if only so I don't have to think about Princess Leia as a slaveowner. On that note, does anybody else remember a couple years back that there was an edition of Huckleberry Finn where every instance of the N-word was replaced with "Robot"? |
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Apr 26, 2017 16:27:36 GMT
Well, it's a quiet sidestep The "hero" droids are treated as "sentient" while the others aren't. And canon applies to more than just the movies, it's the two Filoni animated series, some comics and some novels as well as the films. Until they change their minds again. It's kind of neat. There used to be several levels of canon. Here it is summarized from the relevant portion of the article on canon from Wookieepedia. (As an aside, I love that that Star Wars wiki is called Wookieepedia) In descending order: G-canon was George Lucas Canon: the six Episodes and any statements by George Lucas. T-canon was television Canon: The Clone Wars TV series. Rebels would be here, but the system was discontinued before Rebels debuted. C-canon was Continuity Canon: Novels, comics, games, other cartoons. S-canon was Secondary Canon: Stuff that was optional. Mostly from older works that didn't quite fit in with the the vision of the Star Wars universe once they started worrying about continuity. D-Canon was Detours Canon: From the canceled Star Wars Detours comedy series. N-Canon was Non Canonical Works: Either hypothetical "What If?" stories or earlier stuff that was later explicitly contradicted by more canonical works. I took a look at the entries on droids while I was there, and it seems some droids could be upgraded with sentience programming, most of them weren't. Holiday Special still isn't canon! That's a bridge too far, sir! There is a little VCR that lives in my heart, and Bea Arthur sings on in there FOREVER! It clarifies further "With Lucasfilm's creation of a single, unified continuity that excludes the Expanded Universe, this canon hierarchy system is now defunct. All content that was previously considered to be below T-canon is now officially non-canon, unless it is referenced in a new canon work." |
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Post by TinDogPodcast on Apr 27, 2017 6:32:52 GMT
Ok. As we know. Robots who go centient... always end well.
See terminator and west world and Humans.and lots of Asimov
But... the Star Wars universe is different
Slavery is outlawed Ep1
And anyone can make a droids. .. from bits or a kit ... see Ep1
So. Are droids centient?
They don't obey the laws of robotics.
Which make sense. I mean our real world ones don't and never will.
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Post by charlesuirdhein on Apr 27, 2017 13:18:13 GMT
Ok. As we know. Robots who go centient... always end well. See terminator and west world and Humans.and lots of Asimov But... the Star Wars universe is different Slavery is outlawed Ep1 And anyone can make a droids. .. from bits or a kit ... see Ep1 So. Are droids centient? They don't obey the laws of robotics. Which make sense. I mean our real world ones don't and never will. They would if it was possible to program them in. The ethical dilemma is designing a machine intelligent enough to understand the complexity of the instructions, and if you do is that sentience, and if it IS sentience can you then morally use those instructions to enslave them? |
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Post by TinDogPodcast on Apr 27, 2017 14:21:24 GMT
I'm thinking red dwarf got it right...
Just like humans.
Trick the robots into believing that there's an afterlife with a reward...
Then they will behave.
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Post by TinDogPodcast on Apr 27, 2017 14:22:24 GMT
C3po does say... thank the maker...
I'm sure he doesn't mean Anakin
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Post by theotherjosh on Apr 27, 2017 20:35:39 GMT
Ok. As we know. Robots who go centient... always end well. See terminator and west world and Humans.and lots of Asimov But... the Star Wars universe is different Slavery is outlawed Ep1 And anyone can make a droids. .. from bits or a kit ... see Ep1 So. Are droids centient? They don't obey the laws of robotics. Which make sense. I mean our real world ones don't and never will. I don't have the exact quote at my fingertips, but I was reading something about Asimov and the Three Laws of Robotics. He was always updating and revising things, and one thing he incorporated was a failsafe if the robot was ever given a NOMAD-type logic bomb. If it was looping because of a "This statement is a lie", the robot would just say, "Ha ha ha, get lost meatbag." (Which, on reflection, is kind of what happens in The Green Death. Once again, Doctor Who predicts the future, like it did with the female Prime Minister and the Cyberman Invasion of 1986.) Similarly, if it was stalemated in a situation where no choice was better than another, it would randomly select a course of action, then resume logical reasoning once it had made that choice. The thing that makes this really interesting to me is that this is the logic that underlays Siri's divide by zero response and other similar systems. |
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Post by jasonward on Apr 27, 2017 22:06:40 GMT
Nah, I give you R2D2 and BB8 as evidence that you don't need people shaped robots/droids to find them friendly. Are star wars droids sentient? I've read the rest of the thread, and for all the cannon stuff and all the no they are not stuff, I have to say yes. If something is indistinguishable from the thing itself, then the something is the thing itself. i.e. whatever someone says, or whatever in universe limits are apparently applied to droid programming and motivation, if as an observer I cannot see any difference between the result of that and something that has free will and sentience, then what I observe has free will and sentience. |
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Post by agentten on Apr 27, 2017 22:29:37 GMT
My head cannon has always been that no, normally they aren't, but in very special cases they can be. Certain droids are unique because of their manufacture or because they are caught up in certain events. Just as The Force guides people to meet each other, or to learn information about their past that they might not otherwise learn, or even, apparently, conceive a child as in the case of Anakin, I believe there are a very few droids such as C3PO and R2D2 who have become more than just droids.
Purely my head cannon, though. I tend to prefer my Star Wars a little more mystical and a little less scientific.
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Post by TinDogPodcast on Apr 28, 2017 5:33:27 GMT
Maybe r2 is an exemption. .. they do say that he is different
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Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2017 5:39:29 GMT
I'd say that some certainly are. Knights of the Old Republic II outright states that robots get regularly scheduled memory wipes to prevent them from developing any "personality quirks". T3-M4 acts of his own volition and seems very crotchety, while HK-47 starts off lying to the player in regards to his function. He even takes pride in his work, providing a rationale to his peers on how assassination is a form of art to him.
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Post by TinDogPodcast on Apr 28, 2017 8:08:10 GMT
Ig88.
Is he a bounty hunter?
I he a droids?
What about the battle droids?
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The "hero" droids are treated as "sentient" while the others aren't. And canon applies to more than just the movies, it's the two Filoni animated series, some comics and some novels as well as the films. Until they change their minds again. Holiday Special still isn't canon!
