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CRMcNeill
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 Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 3:01 pm Post subject: |
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| Sutehp wrote: | | Treating two people differently when they're in the same circumstances and feel the same things is prejudice, pure and simple. And prejudice is simply wrong. |
That sounds remarkably like Argumentum ad Passiones, as well as False Equivalence. There are a myriad of ways in which droids differ from organics, not least of which is the fact that droids are, in every sense of the word, property. Whether the intellectual property involved in the design, or the intended purpose of their construction, or the manner in which ownership of said devices is exchanged, they are designed and built for a specific purpose. I know you're smart enough to see the huge difference in kind between humans reproducing and humans building an interactive device to perform menial tasks.
I would also point out that much of the "droids should be free" argument is hugely based on the modern perspective that freedom is the highest, most inviolable moral virtue, and that any thinking being must automatically trend towards freedom and independent. This ignores the myriad of ways in human history where individuals have voluntarily ceded control over their lives to external sources, up to and including voluntarily entering into slavery.
It also ignores the strong possibility that much of a droid's "humanity" is also likely based in our own tendency to anthropomorphize something that isn't human. Look at our own tendency to treat our pets, cars, etc, as though they have thoughts and feelings and can understand what we say.
And finally, I refer back to the points made early on in this topic; the vast majority of droids may not want to be free, and may in fact view those who do wish to be free as malfunctioning / insane. It's almost certain that droid manufacturers would go to great lengths to ingrain this mindset, as a protocol droid that suffers a midlife crisis and runs off to get its degree in Zero-G Basketweaving is no longer useful as a protocol droid.
Now, manumission of droids is a thing in the SWU (see Squeaky from the Wraith Squadron books) which includes removing the droid's restraining bolt port, but such droids are going to be few and far between, and their manumission may not be universally accepted, either.
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Sutehp
Commodore
Joined: 01 Nov 2016
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Location: Washington, DC (AKA Inside the Beltway)
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| Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 3:12 pm Post subject: |
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| TauntaunScout wrote: | | Droids are just really good appliances with Watson and/or Siri grafted onto them for an interface. |
How do you know that? Siri responds to verbal commands, but can it actually think for itself? Can Siri express an opinion? We know C-3PO can express opinions ("Oh my, I've forgotten how much I hate space travel!"). Can Siri feel fear? We know C-3PO can. What's your basis for saying that C-3PO is "just an appliance" when he can do so much more than any mere appliance?
| TauntaunScout wrote: | | R2's not sentient that's why Luke can't make him understand that he's doing (or not doing) something for emotional reasons. |
Not being able to understand a specific person's reasoning does not make one nonsentient, Tauntaun. Lots of people didn't understand Luke's desire to go into exile, especially Rey. Does that make Rey nonsentient?
Just saying that Siri is mechanical and nonsentient and then saying droids are mechanical thus they are nonsentient doesn't make sense. If you can't answer a simple question, then we're just dancing around the issue. So I think I have to ask you straight up: what makes a person sentient? In other words, what makes a person a person and why do Star Wars droids not fulfill that requirement? You keep saying that droids aren't sentient. Why aren't they sentient? Why aren't droids people? We see C-3PO and R2-D2 act like people by feeling emotions and having personal quirks, so how are they not people? Is having a "soul" something that is only biological and not mechanical? That would seem to contradict your earlier statement that humans "created droids' souls out of whole cloth," wouldn't it?
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Dredwulf60
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| Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 6:34 pm Post subject: |
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This is such a rich conversation.
Coming back to the Restraining Bolt;
https://starwars.fandom.com/wiki/Restraining_bolt
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A restraining bolt, also known as a restraining separator bolt, was a small device that could be attached to most droids used to ensure their obedience. More specifically, when fitted with a restraining bolt, droids could not leave the area designated by their owner, and were forced to obey commands given from a small remote device called a caller (such as "COME" and "STOP"). When activated, the restraining bolt turned off a droid's motor impulse without actually shutting down the droid. Restraining bolts had to be secured to specific locations on the droid. |
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Maybe one too many droids went haywire and started killing innocent bystanders. |
Haywire in the form of a malfunction? A malfunction that a factory-reset wouldn't alleviate? A malfunction that couldn't also cause a restraining bolt to be ineffective?
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Maybe some droids were deliberately rigged with override program in order to turn them into unwitting agents for corporate espionage, saboteurs or assassins.
So, in reaction, corporations / governments / etc mandated that droids had to be fitted with a restraining bolt as an external failsafe. |
That seems like a reasonable measure, just the sort of reaction a government would have; like putting leashes on dogs. But I think corporate spys, saboteurs and assassins would be easily able to circumvent restraining bolt technology.
Luke says to R2D2: "Oh, yeah, well, I guess you're too small to run away on me if I take this off!"
Implying that the restraining bolt is meant to keep him from running away. He probably isn't too afraid of R2 killing them in their sleep...even though he probably could.
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And then the Law of Unintended Consequences kicked in and droid thieves started using restraining bolts to keep the "stolen property" from returning to its former master. |
Which I think you mean in reference to the above Luke quote.
I dunno man, still seems to me to be an allegory to a slave shackle, but I guess it's open to interpretation. |
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TauntaunScout
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| Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 7:59 pm Post subject: |
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They don't feel emotions, their programmers programmed them to pantomime human expressions of emotion for the benefit of the human customers. It's just part of the machine's interface, like having English on my computer instead of binary code.
Think about this. C-3PO cannot impersonate a deity, even to save his friend's lives. If he was sentient, and they were really his friends, and he really could think for himself, I reckon he would've. But no. His programming is his programming. The most hardcore anthropologist with the most stringent ethics of non-interference would have impersonated a deity in that situation to keep his companions from being eaten. But not 3-PO.
These droids "develop quirks" much like my streaming TV device has developed quirks: it knows what I've watched and makes a suggestion, sometimes those suggestions ARE very quirky to the point of making me laugh. It's not sentient.
What makes a person a person and what's a soul is something people have struggled with long before us.I'm not getting drawn into a religious discussion on here. Whatever a soul is, I don't think you don't build it in your garage like Anakin did.
Edit: I guess there's another issue with pain. When we feel pain it actually debilitates us. C-3PO can be missing limbs and chatting away, moving the other limbs just fine, reasoning things out with a clear head, doing his job. Whereas people with a big superficial wound (let alone missing limbs) can be totally shut down by pain. So this is why I say he doesn't "feel" pain, he reports on damage to his systems. |
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CRMcNeill
Director of Engineering
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| Posted: Mon Jul 08, 2019 10:41 pm Post subject: |
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| Dredwulf60 wrote: | | Haywire in the form of a malfunction? A malfunction that a factory-reset wouldn't alleviate? A malfunction that couldn't also cause a restraining bolt to be ineffective? |
Haywire in the form of a being with metal arms bludgeoning people to death if they got too close (as in, close enough to trigger the factory reset), during a time before restraining bolts were a thing. Sure, Threepio has the shutdown switch on his neck, but if he was flailing at you and trying to keep you away from it?
| Quote: | | But I think corporate spies, saboteurs and assassins would be easily able to circumvent restraining bolt technology. |
Wouldn't be the first time a government proposed a one-size-fits-all solution that didn't address the actual problem.
| Quote: | | I dunno man, still seems to me to be an allegory to a slave shackle, but I guess it's open to interpretation. |
Well, as I said above, much depends on how the droid looks at it. The "slavery" accusation seems hugely dependent on the idea that most/all droids want to be free and self-determining, yet there are all kinds of reasons why this mindset would be the exceedingly rare exception, and not the rule.
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Sutehp
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| Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2019 1:12 am Post subject: |
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| TauntaunScout wrote: | | They don't feel emotions, their programmers programmed them to pantomime human expressions of emotion for the benefit of the human customers. It's just part of the machine's interface, like having English on my computer instead of binary code. |
How do you know it's just a "pantomine?" There's an old phrase: "Fake it 'til you make it." Is it impossible for an imitation of emotion to become authentic enough to be the real thing? Yelling "ow!" doesn't seem to be the most efficient way for a machine to report damage to its owner. Every malfunctioning computer I've seen will say something along the lines of "Warning, 404 Error" or somesuch; precisely none of them said "ow!" when they malfunctioned or were accidentally dropped or banged up.
| TauntaunScout wrote: | | Think about this. C-3PO cannot impersonate a deity, even to save his friends' lives. If he was sentient, and they were really his friends, and he really could think for himself, I reckon he would've. But no. His programming is his programming. The most hardcore anthropologist with the most stringent ethics of non-interference would have impersonated a deity in that situation to keep his companions from being eaten. But not C-3PO. |
But C-3PO eventually did impersonate a deity at the Ewok village, at Luke's urging no less, when Luke told him to tell the Ewoks that if they weren't released, C-3PO would "become angry and use [his] magic." (Remember when C-3PO threatened the Ewoks in Ewokese and then yelled "BOOM!" at the Ewoks? That's the moment I'm talking about.) Which means that C-3PO overcame his own programming when Luke convinced him that the situation was dire enough. That means that C-3PO has sufficient free will to override his own programming. Don't tell me that Siri can do that!
| TauntaunScout wrote: | | These droids "develop quirks" much like my streaming TV device has developed quirks: it knows what I've watched and makes a suggestion, sometimes those suggestions ARE very quirky to the point of making me laugh. It's not sentient. |
No one is arguing that your streaming TV device is sentient. That has nothing to do with whether C-3PO is sentient. People can be quirky, droids can be quirky, pets can be quirky, hell, even cars can be quirky to hear my mechanic tell it. If both sentient people and nonsentient animals and even machines can be quirky, then quirkiness has nothing to do with whether or not something or someone is sentient.
| TauntaunScout wrote: | | What makes a person a person and what's a soul is something people have struggled with long before us.I'm not getting drawn into a religious discussion on here. Whatever a soul is, I don't think you don't build it in your garage like Anakin did. |
But that's precisely the issue we're discussing here: Are droids like C-3PO and R2-D2 and especially L3 from Solo people? Personhood is a synonym for sentience; they're interchangeable terms. To say that C-3PO is not sentient is to say that he's not a person. If you asked C-3PO if he was a person, would you expect him to say no? If you asked R2-D2 if he was a person, would you expect him to say (in Droidspeak) that he wasn't a person? If you asked L3 if she (hey, look! A female gender pronoun to refer to a droid! Will wonders never cease!) was a person, she would most defintiely say yes. Even you yourself seem to have doubts whether C-3PO is just an object because you, just like the rest of us in this discussion, refer to C-3PO as "him" instead of "it." After all, "It" Is Dehumanizing but you've anthropomorthized C-3PO just the same as the rest of us. So if you're really arguing that C-3PO is not a person, then why do you refer to "him" without an ounce of irony?
Again, the direct issue here is whether droids are people. If you refuse to make evidence-based arguments why droids are not people, then you're just expressing an unfounded opinion instead of adding anything to the discussion. Saying "I'm not gonna get drawn into a religious discussion" is just a dodge that does nothing for your credibility. How are we supposed to take your argument seriously in that case?
| TauntaunScout wrote: | | Edit: I guess there's another issue with pain. When we feel pain it actually debilitates us. C-3PO can be missing limbs and chatting away, moving the other limbs just fine, reasoning things out with a clear head, doing his job. Whereas people with a big superficial wound (let alone missing limbs) can be totally shut down by pain. So this is why I say he doesn't "feel" pain, he reports on damage to his systems. |
It's not actually true that pain debilitates all humans. Some people have a very high tolerance for pain and can still function even with very serious injuries. That's not so very different from C-3PO. Humans with a high pain tolerance can "report on damage to their systems" by simply describing their injuries just as calmly as a droid can do the same. Does that mean that these humans can't feel pain? Of course not. Why? Because not being debilitated by pain is not the same as being unable to feel pain, after all. So if C-3PO and some humans can both have the ability to not be debilitated by pain, as well as have the ability to express pain by saying "ow!", then why arbitrarily say that C-3PO can't feel pain?
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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Location: Columbus, Ohio, USA, Earth, The Solar System, The Milky Way Galaxy
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| Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2019 1:14 am Post subject: |
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Do droids have a soul? What is a soul? Questions like this are beside the point of droid sentience. And droids being sentient does not in any way change the nature of the Force. Since the classic trilogy, the Force has been shown to have a biological basis, long before M-words became public. Droids are inorganic, so the question of droid sentience is not much related to the Force, other than the basic fact that it is sentient organics that created the droids.
Data in Star Trek is somewhat relevant to the discussion of Star Wars droid sentience in that Threepio is just as sentient as Data is. The big difference is that Star Trek is lot further on the sci-fi end of the space opera spectrum so Trek makes it a point to philosophize about these questions. In Star Wars, it just is what it is. Threepio and Data are both sentient because they are fictional characters who were created by real world humans to be sentient, as those real world humans define the term. The artificial Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz always had a heart because the story was written for him to.
I think a lot of us are talking past each other about different things.
We are not talking about the real world. Toasters, TV streaming applications, Alexa, and Siri are not anywhere near the level of sophisticated AI in Star Wars and Star Trek. It's quite silly to compare droids with these things. Will Data and Threepio even be possible in the real world? Maybe some day we will know, but they aren't possible now and we aren't discussing if artificial sentience is even possible in the real world. These fictional AI characters and their sentience are merely -poofed- into existence from the imaginations of filmmakers and writers. In that Trek episode, no one questioned Picard's sentience - It is taken for granted. But Picard is also a fictional sentient being.
In Star Wars, it is not 'Let's make an artificial life form and then question their sentience'. Rather, it is more like, 'Let's make a character as sentient as the rest, but as a twist this one is an artificial mechanical being instead of a living being. The artificial part is hand waved into the character. The first two droids created for Star Wars were indeed Threepio and Artoo, and they were indeed initially based on the peasants in The Hidden Fortress. Making these characters droids was part of the adaptation of the plot to space opera. It was not anthropomorphizing machines. It was technopomorphizing men.
Some of us are speaking as if we were characters living in the Star Wars universe and debating droid rights. You are basically talking about 'What if Star Wars was real?' If you guys want to create a play-by-post game where you debate droid rights in-character as fictional characters, we can create a forum for that. But here, you must remember that the spoon isn't even there, Neo. As GMs, we have the wide overview. Droid rights activists exist in the SWU, just as there are those that don't view them as having any rights and those of various positions in between. All of these people are as unreal as the droids. And if your particular Star Wars universe doesn't even have droid rights activism as a plot device, then that is your SWU.
I feel some of you are leaving out the "in my SWU" phrase from your statements. If droids aren't considered to be sentient in your SWU then that is your prerogative, but it is extremely obvious that that the Maker intended some droid characters to be sentient - They are fictional characters first and droids second. It was a simple creative hand wave and it was done. Lucas has outright said as much about the humanity of Threepio and even Artoo. He found it an amusing character attribute that these characters are machines. Sure there are contradictions within the entire bodies of Legends and Canon, but by and large, authors follow suit and write the sentient droids as sentient.
So yes, droids are programmed technology. Yes, they are designed for specific purposes. Yes, they are made to serve organics. Yes, they are often considered to be malfunctioning if they deviate from that purpose, or express sentiments of free will. Are they basically slaves in some cases? Yes. Is it immoral for them to be slaves? Droids aren't real and I am not a fictional character living in the SWU, so the morality of droid servitude is not my concern outside of the plot of adventures. If Threepio-level AI is ever real within my lifetime, I'll consider that question then. In Star Wars, the AI of some droids is so advanced that it gives sentience. Out of universe, it is a hand wave that they are sentient, but they are sentient. In universe, it is what it is for whatever gobbledegook reason. The droid fictional characters created to be sentient by real humans are sentient for all intents and purposes of the story.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2019 2:11 am Post subject: |
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Side note: per Cracken’s Rebel Field Guide, AI is so prevalent and commonplace that even basic data storage files incorporate aspects of it. This actually allows the file itself to make intuitive extrapolations based on the data available to them. Of course, such a file’s scope of knowledge will be extremely limited, but can be quite thorough. For instance, the Death Star Plans Artoo was carrying around had an effective skill of 10D in Death Star Plans.
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TauntaunScout
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| Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2019 9:26 am Post subject: |
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For the artistic stuff, as much as people talk about Kurosawa, I think this gets into the vastly underrated influence of The Wizard of Oz. As movie characters go, this is pretty much the Tinman and the Scarecrow. The parallels between WOZ and ANH are many. I don't think any serious knowledge of postwar American film making can come without watching WOZ a dozen times or two. Its influence on all filmmakers who grew up after it came out is probably incalculable.
I'm firmly in the camp of droids in my RPG's are like any other machine. They're a thing. They're a very advanced machine but they don't have feelings, they don't want freedom, they aren't "enslaved", etc. Being artificial and inorganic places an insurmountable obstacle between the highest droid and the lowest fungi. Droids aren't alive, end of slavery discussion for me. However, we can have real affection for things. I've risked my life to rescue objects of sentimental value. |
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Whill
Dark Lord of the Jedi (Owner/Admin)
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| Posted: Tue Jul 09, 2019 8:34 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | | The artificial Tin Man in The Wizard of Oz always had a heart because the story was written for him to. |
| TauntaunScout wrote: | | For the artistic stuff, as much as people talk about Kurosawa, I think this gets into the vastly underrated influence of The Wizard of Oz. As movie characters go, this is pretty much the Tinman and the Scarecrow. The parallels between WOZ and ANH are many. I don't think any serious knowledge of postwar American film making can come without watching WOZ a dozen times or two. Its influence on all filmmakers who grew up after it came out is probably incalculable. |
Kurosawa had a huge influence on George Lucas, which is why he is brought up in Star Wars discussions.
Yes, The Wizard of Oz is a huge influence on filmmaking in general. I've probably seen it a dozen times in my life. When I was a kid I remember it coming on TV about once a year and my family always watched it. I finally got to see it in the theater for its 60th anniversary rerelease. My girlfriend at the time had two young daughters, and it was only the second film they had ever seen in the theater (the first being TPM). I've seen it once more since then with my son a few years ago. I have nostalgia for it. It's a classic. And your little dog too!
The Wizard of Oz was so important to Lucas that he helped financed the unofficial 1985 sequel that bombed. I also haven't see the unofficial 2013 prequel, but I've heard it was good.
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TauntaunScout
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| Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2019 10:09 am Post subject: |
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The tin man and scarecrow are magical and a whole other thing than droids too. But I think WOZ gets way too little credit in fan's discussions of Star Wars. Probably because there's little crossover in the fandom. Nobody reads Burroughs anymore either which is also crucial to Star Wars.
I also don't think a lot of this stuff we gamers discuss was on filmmakers minds much!
Specifically within Star Wars I feel like the idea of a sentient machine is at odds with the underlying themes of humanity over technology. |
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Whill
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| Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2019 9:34 pm Post subject: |
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| TauntaunScout wrote: | | Specifically within Star Wars I feel like the idea of a sentient machine is at odds with the underlying themes of humanity over technology. |
It's not really. Droids are sentient primarily because it was funny that some sentient characters in the galaxy are actually machines.
Sentience does not mean equality. I think some of you so opposed to the idea of droid sentience are reading more into it than it means and then taking offense at your inference. Even the slavery symbolism isn't a morality statement on the ethics of making technology subservient to mankind (or even the ethics of slavery). As I stated, sentient droids are primarily characters who are mechanical, not mechanical beings who are sentient. In Star Wars, it just is what it is.
And actually Artoo's sentience specifically emphasized the theme of humanity and nature over technology in ANH. After Luke turned off the targeting computer to act on instinct, Vader shot Artoo and Luke said, "I've lost Artoo." Even Artoo, a very spunky, strong-willed, and technologically adept artificial character, could not help Luke. This was Lucas's stated meeting. Artoo, even with the hand waved miracle of sentience, was still only a mere machine that Luke could not depend on.
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CRMcNeill
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| Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2019 9:58 pm Post subject: |
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I’m less concerned about droids actually being sentient than I am about the assertion that being sentient requires that droids have, need or even want to be independent and self-determining, or the assertion that sentience in the rare, exceptional droid like R2, 3PO, or Bollux should be considered the norm for all droids, all the way down to the simple-minded drone running the static broom out in the hallway.
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"No set of rules can cover every situation. It's expected that you will make up new rules to suit the needs of your game." - The Star Wars Roleplaying Game, 2R&E, pg. 69, WEG, 1996.
The CRMcNeill Stat/Rule Index
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Whill
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| Posted: Wed Jul 10, 2019 10:01 pm Post subject: |
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| CRMcNeill wrote: | | I’m less concerned about droids actually being sentient than I am about the assertion that being sentient requires that droids have, need or even want to be independent and self-determining, or the assertion that sentience in the rare, exceptional droid like R2, 3PO, or Bollux should be considered the norm for all droids, all the way down to the simple-minded drone running the static broom out in the hallway. |
Is anyone actually asserting that?
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TauntaunScout
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| Posted: Thu Jul 11, 2019 12:11 am Post subject: |
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| Whill wrote: |
Is anyone actually asserting that? |
I run into it often. "[Faction X] is no better, they treat the droids like slaves!" is a common type of statement among fans. According to people at dice saloons, every gonk and battledroid in the galaxy is a human rights issue.
From a movie perspective, that all makes sense to me. They have to have a degree of autonomy to keep things moving. And because it's a spaceship fairy tale so droids can fill the roles often given to talking animals, magic mirrors, and so on.
But in my RPG/Miniatures games? No way. It's not murder to blow up a droid for example, so you don't get dark side points for it, or whatever the situation is.
Though to put the shoe on the other foot I'm reminded of a short story by (I think) Hal Clement. Some silicon based lifeform that had brains which could count the miliseconds going by, and had to ingest metallic compounds, thought of us as "those highly active carbon compounds which almost resembled true life". |
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