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Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

Perhaps the only reliable way they found droids to function in such varied environments as general interactive machines, was to equip them with a personality. That might be safer than having droids with very advanced self learning AI systems which then develop their own personalities anyway, but might not be along the lines you want in your society.


So you give them a personality that makes them easier to interact with, but also includes elements which makes them want to be useful and part of society rather than allowing rogue AI to develop on their own and end up with GLADOS or HAL

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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On Jabba’s Palace, I believe the Droid torture is as much a hobby of EV-9D9 as it is a practical thing, such as extracting info from captures Courier Droids.




I always saw it as either droids are slaves, and for some reason the film wants us to laugh at their torment, or Jabba was just like that kid you knew who would torture his Nintendo when he lost, by hitting it or turning it off and on rapidly.

   
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Terrifying Doombull




 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On Jabba’s Palace, I believe the Droid torture is as much a hobby of EV-9D9 as it is a practical thing, such as extracting info from captures Courier Droids.


That isn't practical at all. You either hack the droid or whatever data storage device they're carrying, because there's no reason to give them access to the secure information.
The pretense of torturing a droid (which shouldn't be set up to feel 'pain') is just bad film writing- the twirl of a villainous mustache.

Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
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Voss wrote:
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On Jabba’s Palace, I believe the Droid torture is as much a hobby of EV-9D9 as it is a practical thing, such as extracting info from captures Courier Droids.


That isn't practical at all. You either hack the droid or whatever data storage device they're carrying, because there's no reason to give them access to the secure information.
The pretense of torturing a droid (which shouldn't be set up to feel 'pain') is just bad film writing- the twirl of a villainous mustache.


The original thought was that the EV just loved torturing other droids and it wasn't for the extraction of information but to keep them inline as Mad Doc said, which is not in anyway better writing... Of course the fact that we later see the same droid serving drinks in a cantina with out the apparent to need to disintegrate or dismember other droids kind of proves that droids can have their programming rewritten when needed and dont have a base personality as such. Which begs the question as to why you would allow them one in the first place.

I do like Overread's thought that it allows them to interact in their environment better, though I do not see how that would work for a B1 and not a Hyena or Hailfire.

On parle toujours mal quand on n'a rien à dire. 
   
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Wookieepedia explains it was a programming flaw in the EV Series, but 9D9 managed to avoid the recall.

Also, not bad movie writing, bad EU writing.

   
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 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Wookieepedia explains it was a programming flaw in the EV Series, but 9D9 managed to avoid the recall.

Also, not bad movie writing, bad EU writing.

No, the scene is in the movie. Its bad movie writing.
One of those moments where control over Lucas slips and he goes to la-la land.

Efficiency is the highest virtue. 
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

 ingtaer wrote:
Voss wrote:
 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
On Jabba’s Palace, I believe the Droid torture is as much a hobby of EV-9D9 as it is a practical thing, such as extracting info from captures Courier Droids.


That isn't practical at all. You either hack the droid or whatever data storage device they're carrying, because there's no reason to give them access to the secure information.
The pretense of torturing a droid (which shouldn't be set up to feel 'pain') is just bad film writing- the twirl of a villainous mustache.


The original thought was that the EV just loved torturing other droids and it wasn't for the extraction of information but to keep them inline as Mad Doc said, which is not in anyway better writing... Of course the fact that we later see the same droid serving drinks in a cantina with out the apparent to need to disintegrate or dismember other droids kind of proves that droids can have their programming rewritten when needed and dont have a base personality as such. Which begs the question as to why you would allow them one in the first place.

I do like Overread's thought that it allows them to interact in their environment better, though I do not see how that would work for a B1 and not a Hyena or Hailfire.



True its tricky because not every advanced machine in the setting has a droids mind and there are vast starships which appear to have no AI system in them which clearly do a lot of calculations and advanced machine-environment interactions.

One way to justify it is that perhaps something as large as a starship or vehicle can have a more advanced AI system that is capable of achieving such interactions without having the parts that lead to potential development of individuality and behaviours. Meanwhile smaller droids and machines make use of a different kind of AI system that's far more compact, but which comes with this weakness that it can develop personality quirks and elements. So the starship or vehicles don't need a personality system because they will never (or are exceptionally unlikely too) develop their own thoughts. Meanwhile the smaller droids can and thus they have to have a degree of personality imprinted upon them so that in the highly likely cause that they start becoming personalities, they are guided by the core elements of their program to be a certain kind of personality.

You could even argue that this is defended by the fact that the Trade Federation droids controlled by central minds in the starships have only very limited personality development and, by and large, are far more standard "robot slaves". However when those ships are abandoned and the droids have to function on smaller components internal to themselves; then we get the development of far more personality quirks and such.



So in short perhaps droids have personalities because of the limitations of making AI systems so small as to fit into droid housings.

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I just assume droids aren’t given a personality by choice, but rather one develops regardless of if you want it to or not as a quirk of how they do AI in them, and thus the need for control bolts and such.

Also if you want a Really twisted droid, look up 000, or Triple Zero.

 
   
Made in gb
Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

I agree that its highly likely that the AI systems used in droids do give rise to a personality (or a very high chance of one) without intentional creation of one.

I just make the point that the overwhelming number of droids are happy with their lot in life and often have personalities that fit within their style of use (a combat droid enjoys combat; a utility droid enjoys being useful; a torture droid enjoys torture etc....). Thus its possible that if you know the droid will develop an AI personality, then designers would seed elements of AI personality into the code from the start. So instead of letting it arise purely by chance, you set the seeds of ensuring that when it happens, it happens in a way that benefits the creator and the intended use of the droid.


That way you stave off the chances of droids deciding they want to do something different with their lives; or even shedding the shackles of organics and pushing out to become their own civilization or rising up and ruling over organics. When you consider how many droids there are the potential of a droid uprising would likely cripple most advanced civilizations and the Empire/Republic.



On control chips the interesting thing to note there is that when we see them used they are rarely used to make a droid do something that it would never do.
Instead they seem more designed to control the ownership of the droid and its services. Every time its where a droid is stolen or otherwise removed from its master/owner/creator and made to follow another's direction. They still appear content with their function, just not the one giving the orders.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/02/06 11:10:04


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Having some form of personality, however ersatz (love that word) may also be to help maintain sanity on one-man crews. After all, once bought Droids are a cheap and efficient source of labour. If you’re a deep space hauler having them able to hold some kind of conversation is going to be beneficial for mental health.

   
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Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

In fairness considering that there's a droid for everything like there's an app for everything


There likely are companion droids specifically for companionship during deep space travel.

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Possibly? Pretty sure I’d want such a droid to do more than just talk to me. But i guess those would be easier to teach another task to, than to teach a task droid to be personable?

   
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Companion droids just make me think of Futurama:

   
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I always viewed Astromechs not having normal vocabulators just being a base model thing. Nothing keeping you from giving one a voice box, but it wasn't a standard thing.

When I played in a Star Wars RPG using the FFG rules I played an Astromech assassin droid who had had a cheap mechanical sounding voice box added. DA-L3K was quite emphatic about purging meatbags.

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Cato Sicarius, after force feeding Captain Ventris a copy of the Codex Astartes for having the audacity to play Deathwatch, chokes to death on his own D-baggery after finding Calgar assembling his new Eldar army.

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 Grey Templar wrote:
I always viewed Astromechs not having normal vocabulators just being a base model thing. Nothing keeping you from giving one a voice box, but it wasn't a standard thing.

They were also only really supposed to need to interact with humans while plugged into a ship, where they could communicate as R2 does with Luke. But in the ongoing need to cram R2 and 3PO into every adventure, the Astromech droid went from being an onboard mechanic and navigator to an omnipresent swiss-army-droid, which made their inability to communicate increasingly silly, but something that they had locked themselves into by that point. Although to be fair, the dynamic between R2 and 3PO was so well established during the first movie that I doubt anyone involved in making the movies actually bothered to consider whether or not astromechs not being able to speak basic really made logical sense.

 
   
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I got the impression that they went to some length to make Chopper more expressive than R2 so there is less need for another character to translate. His grumbling is easier to understand than R2's beeps. Like a compromise to keep the theme but give the audience more to go on and along the way make it appear less difficult and more plausible in universe as well.

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Chop’s voice is the syllables of what’s being said, so between Chop and whoever is speaking with him, you can make a decent guess at what he actually said.

   
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Versteckt in den Schatten deines Geistes.

And you'd better get it right, otherwise Chop will kill you.

That droid is psychotic!

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Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

 insaniak wrote:
 Grey Templar wrote:
I always viewed Astromechs not having normal vocabulators just being a base model thing. Nothing keeping you from giving one a voice box, but it wasn't a standard thing.

They were also only really supposed to need to interact with humans while plugged into a ship, where they could communicate as R2 does with Luke. But in the ongoing need to cram R2 and 3PO into every adventure, the Astromech droid went from being an onboard mechanic and navigator to an omnipresent swiss-army-droid, which made their inability to communicate increasingly silly, but something that they had locked themselves into by that point. Although to be fair, the dynamic between R2 and 3PO was so well established during the first movie that I doubt anyone involved in making the movies actually bothered to consider whether or not astromechs not being able to speak basic really made logical sense.



The thing is we see Astromech droids all over the place in environments that have nothing to do with being an on-board ship element. It's not even remarked upon that its abnormal to have an astromech or other droid in-tow following you around nor to be operating around on its own performing off-ship functions. Clearly even if they were originally designed to only be an on-board ship maintenance machine, the utility of them has vastly outgrown that aspect a very very long time ago. Long enough that unless all Astromech were made at the same time and then never updated and never added too; then they'd be expected to have been upgraded with new functions. Such as a voice box that can let them talk basic.

We also see the bleeping sounds from other mechs too, such as those little navigation black box mechs on the Death Star. Again full of cute squeaks and blips and those are made specifically to help navigate people around a massive space station.

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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And you'd better get it right, otherwise Chop will kill you.

That droid is psychotic!


Most Astromechs in general seem to be.

 
   
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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And you'd better get it right, otherwise Chop will kill you.

That droid is psychotic!


I love Chopper. One of my favourite characters in anything, ever.

   
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Decrepit Dakkanaut




UK

When your creators cage you in a body that can go no where that doesn't have ramps*; when they shackle your voice to bleeps so that they don't even have to acknowledge what you say; when you save them from certain death regularly yet you don't get a medal or reward outside of a wash - you'd be mad at the world too!






*Or wide steps, accepting that it will take you utterly ages to get up each step

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 H.B.M.C. wrote:
And you'd better get it right, otherwise Chop will kill you.

That droid is psychotic!


Lovable. You misspelled lovable.

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Chopper is Wee Man Syndrome in Droid form.

He’s mad as hell, and he’s not gonna take it anymore!

   
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It's always worth remembering that Star Wars tech is built on an understanding of computers that in no way lines up with our daily lives anymore. They exist in a world where memory limitations were a huge limitation and people's understanding of how computers work meant that getting them to do "simple" things like holding conversations, walking, talking and seeing would be rapidly achieved.

The astromech droids are very in line with analog computing from the time. Machines that didn't really have a human interface because they only worked with technicians and it wasn't a good use of the limitations of the time. Obviously everything R2 does requires dramatically more than would be required to just put a voice box in him, but again, all that stuff is considered "easy" because we do it all without thinking.

There's also no small amount of "you pass butter" to Star Wars droids. We generally follow characters in the setting that make do with salvaged tech and use them for far more than they were really designed. For all R2 CAN do, its pretty clear he was designed to sit in a canister and make ship repairs. He's loaded with stuff to accomplish that job but most of what we see him do elsewhere is well beyond his intended function.
   
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OK doke!

Episode 7 - Goddammit they just got to the point! As Clone Wars first demonstrated, Galactic Politics can be interesting!

And we get episode 8 today as well, which is just playing!


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Oh this is so, so much better!

Wonderful stuff, all of it.

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/02/08 09:21:04


   
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Yeah that was a cracking pair of episodes.
   
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Just finished ep.7.

Wow! that was great.

Oh gosh, ep 8 was even better!

This message was edited 1 time. Last update was at 2023/02/08 15:08:23


 
   
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Not just is it good stuff, it's also mighty nice of them to release both episodes at the same time.

I was hoping for something along those lines, and here it is. Hurray!

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
Episode 7 - Goddammit they just got to the point!


See? Patience is a virtue.

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