Baffling decision to have the droid whose main trait was droid freedom have a ‘happy’ ending of indentured servitude and no longer having a voice

I think the problem really ramped up in the Clone Wars series where they gave every Battle Droid a personality. Instead of being a mindless army, the Confederacy's armed forces are now full of quirky individuals who have opinions and hobbies but are obligated to still fight the enemy anyway.

Yes! This lack of consistency has bothered me forever. Turning IG11 into a suit for Grogu is just a perfect illustration of this ick factor. If droids are basically people then this baby is piloting a corpse. If they aren't people, then he wasn't really a friend. I don't mind people in the universe believing different things, that makes sense, but Star Wars in general wants us to believe different things depending on their own plot convenience. They do this with Storm Troopers as well.

Star Wars couldn't handle the much easier concept of Finn struggling while killing his fellow enslaved child soldiers. They won't handle this

I personally feel like Andor Season 2 would be the perfect place to explore the subject of droid rights in Star Wars - a show that's ostensibly about what it takes to build a rebellion and why resistance in the face of overwhelming tyranny is a universal trait could naturally invite that sort of discussion with the gravity and nuance that it deserves.

The biggest problem Star Wars has with droids is the inconsistency. Every writers wants something from droids, so droids acts differently.

"The heroic freedom-fighters are presented as realizing their servants are sentient people who want to be free, and yet were all slaveowners anyway." So it's a metaphor for US history?

It's worse when you take in the Extended Universe, in that the Droids did rebel, were beaten, and then basically labotomized (had their intellect capped) to be enslaved again.

A potential answer for L3's revolution could be that the droids at kessel don't want to be there. The issue isn't with working, it's with working at the spice mines of Kessel, an absolute hellhole for most of the occupants. That would mean the droids like to work but understand the morality of situations. This is kinda backed up by The Clone Wars as in the final episodes some astromechs help Ahsoka despite her being labelled a fugitive

BD-1 100% has at LEAST dog level intelligence, but probably much higher. Also, I think one of the significant indicators is Restraning Bolts. 3P0 and R2 didn't wear restraining bolts while in the presence of the main characters, and were clearly viewed as friends or allies.

Okay I disagree about specifically Marva and Cassian. They definitely didn't have B2 stick around because he worked for them, he was around because he was their friend and wanted to be. They occasionally asked him to do things but they were never demands. Maybe when Marva first got B2 idk but not in what we see

I think you could have both. Luke is friends with C3-PO and R2-D2; he doesn’t own them. He did at one point, which is still weird, but they clearly aren’t his slaves. C3-PO and R2-D2 both make decisions on their own without Luke, they rebel against Luke’s wishes, and they hang out with other members of the rebellion. There’s no indication that those two don’t genuinely believe in the rebel cause, especially considering that both of them have *willingly* sacrificed themselves for it on multiple occasions (not a sacrifice out of self-preservation, but a sacrifice out of genuine love for the cause).

it’s worth noting that animal life (aside from humans) is also sentient, and their servitude is generally fine. i’m aware that star wars means sapient when it mentions sentience, but i feel that adds another potential layer to the problem

In episode IV Ben Kenobi says "I don't remember OWNING any droids " people think that's a mistake but I think it says Kenobis take on droids is that they are sentient and not slaves to him.

If they did want to go with a droid rebellion there is actually a character in canon to serve as the droid Magneto, Kalani. Kalani is a Clone Wars Era Super Tactical Droid who ignored the shut-down command sent out by Darth Vader to end the war. He and a small collection of other droids managed to hide out until an encounter with the early Rebel Alliance got the attention of the Empire and they were forced to relocate. To my knowledge he has not been seen since. He could reasonably take up this role with a decidedly anti-Republic bend, he's a veteran of the Clone Wars and while he recognizes the Empire as his enemy the New Republic would likely be viewed in a similar light. Basically take a mix of pre-programmed prejudice against the Galactic Republic and several decades of being both a droid and on the "wrong" side of the Clone Wars and you have a recipe for a revolutionary with the tactical skills to geneuenlly bring down a sizable part of the galaxy.

I viewed the napenthe as Christopher loyd sneaking the Nana machines into it to mind control them. It’d be like if somebody spiked your drink with Rohypnol.

This is the gritty Nando on his villain arc that we needed. I'm saying keep the beard.

This sort of topic is so difficult to discuss and figure out because droids have been in the franchise since the start. Even if more recent stories could tackle the topic of droid sentience, and acknowledge that they should be treated as sentient... there's only so much you can do there. If Luke being friends with C-3PO and R2-D2 and also bossing them around is equivalent to him owning slaves, then to fix that, you'd have to either retcon a lot of the original trilogy to be more morally acceptable, or come to terms with the fact that yes, Luke did own slaves. It's a real catch 22. Personally, I don't think it's an issue that can be properly addressed. It was interesting to hear a dissection of the topic in your vid, but it's left me with more questions than answers.

I always thought Luke didn’t own threepio and R2 after a new hope. They both decided to stay and help the rebellion

I feel like this is how aliens would feel about human’s treatment of other animals.

Couple bits of miscellaneous information for people to do with what they will but I feel like sharing: 1. I see a few people bring up Battle Droids having personalities in Clone Wars. There is an in-universe explanation (coming from I think various sourcebooks). The reason Battle Droids now have personalities is a consequence of them not being connected to a central control computer like they used to be. Apparently some yahoo flew a starfighter into a control ship and blew it up, which caused an entire army to just turn off. So they upgraded and now the battle droids have personalities as a result. 2. During this I was remembering that Star Wars classifies droids into five categories, and in my head I thought that these categories were reflective of how much sentience and intelligence they have. But when I went to research it, I was remembering wrong. The categories are tied to what work they do, and only a couple of them, 3 and 5, specified intelligence. Class 3 is for social droids like 3P0 and requires a healthy amount of it, and 5 is for simple labor like GNK droids, which specifically are kept low intelligence. 3. Star Wars keeps flirting with the idea, and not just through L3. The Gotra that Gor Koresh swears by in Mando S2E1 was originally taken as reference to a droid rights militant faction introduced in 2014's Tarkin novel, but then TBOBF muddies that and says Gotra is a type of organization so by extension he may not be swearing by the Droid Gotra. They really need to commit one way or another and I agree, the second avenue you lay out is really the only option left to them now.

I think you should take a look at chopper. Chopper is a droid that is clearly suffering from PTSD from his time surving in the clone wars. Wish disney would do more with droids

Star Wars has a had a droid problem since literally the very first seen where they didn't shoot the escape pod because it had "no life forms". Even if they don't think of droids as sentient beings, they're still at least functional with autonomous actions. You can't treat talking/thinking beings as both objects and characters. That's how you get Lando selling his droid partner "love" to Han Solo, where she silently screams for the next 40 years as no one ever acknowledges her again.

I think the answer is really simple. None of the characters we meet that treat droids well are in a position to unilaterally liberate the droids. Star Wars is a culture where biological slavery and poverty is relatively commonplace. We have extremely rarely seen droids that have no master. In universe, it just may not be responsible to Elthree, Artoo, Threepio, etc to free them, because on most worlds in universe, they would still have no legal standing.

I viewed the Napenthe caused the droids to rebel, but instead it forced them to behave according to Christopher Loyds commands. Since we know that the nanomachines impart new programming. Aka those droids are mind controlled

I’ve always viewed the ones with more personality as being “jail broken” or aftermarket upgraded. Anakin constantly worked on and tinkered with R2, who’s to say he didn’t add a personality

Honestly I think the "L3 is just crazyy" explanation is the legitimate canon intention (none of her "activism" seemed to be treated seriously by the story, and well... we all saw how she ended up), it just still really doesn't work, and falls into the same "house elf" problem imo (with L3 being both Dobby *and* Herminone the annoying activist in this situation). Like, if most droids enjoy their work, and only a few get all weird and start asking for rights, it's still unethical to enslave them. Unenslaved droids can literally still do the jobs they like, without having to force even those few "crazy" droids to do so against their will. And unlike house elves they don't have the weird "well they'd magically get sick and die if they don't do the work while specifically enslaved to do it" attempted excuse. I am in 100% agreement that in general Star Wars just can't decide on the droids though. We're meant to mourn them like people when they die dramatically (L3's death in Solo, K-2's sacrifice, IG-11 literally gets a statue) but when the harm is done for comedic effect we're no longer supposed to really consider them on that level. (And I know the argument is that they're more like animals, which I agree on for some droids, but you cannot look at like any of the droids who speak English/Basic regularly and tell me that person is practically a pet dog) It's frustrating morally, and it also just makes for worse investment from the audience towards droid characters.

The existence of restraining bolts both confirms that androids are sentient and that they do not want to serve. My toaster doesn't need to be chained.

Really great video. I agree that “guns for hire” is a moral mess, but I’m thankful for it anyway because the clip of the battle droid smacking mando is hilarious

Thank you for bringing this topic up. I've always been bothered by how Star Wars treats its droids and I'm glad to see more people talking about it. I also agree there's fantastic storytelling potential here.

It may be that we're overlooking a 3rd option. The droids are synthetic, their personalities and "feelings" are code based and unreal, they are mobile NPCs from a video driving around in some hardware. Yes, living characters act friendly towards them at times, pat them, play with them, protect them and basically anthropomorphize them. We do this. We do it to pets, we do it to teddy bears, we do it to roombas, we do it. We love and care for Tamagochis. We have feelings for characters in games. We shouldn't interpret normal human action as meaning the droids in Star Wars are sentient or sapient or anything. They are just code being executed in a mobile shell.

I think part of your conflict comes from not watching rebels, see how the droids interact with each other and people, how old battle droids deal with a changing galaxy, how they follow their original directive, and what to do when that directive is impossible, it's not about sentience, but a story of change and adaptation.

This is how I have interoperated droids in star wars so far: Biological races created robots as machines to aid in work, much like us today. As time went on and tech advanced some of these robots developed a level of Artificial Intelligence, the first of which being similar to what we have today. But as the years marched on and Tech kept getting better so did the Ai in the robots. Until eventually many manufactures were making robots with near sentient level intelligence with working emotions that were pre-programed into them. However, again over time those pre-programmed emotions changed, some of these robots felt them in unintended situations, scrappers or hackers changed robots codes. And over time many of these robots started having free control over the emotions they had, being as close to sentient as any human. However as these beings are still created by a capitalist system and sold on market shelves many of the peoples of the galaxy hold the view that they are similar to pets. Like buying a family dog. A dog that will also serve as a butler, maid and mechanic. I would believe in many systems people are raised and taught that droids might emote like people, but they are not. Those motions are fake and can be reprogrammed if you don't like them. It is a simulation and you don't need to care for it. However many people do, and also many of these Droids do manage to "evolve" past their basic programming. Possibly a software bug that gives them freedom from their programming. This software bug could have a connection to the force itself, as this galaxy has a level of magic in it, what if Robots are designed and distributed not as free thinking beings but as they live on, the force does its magic and grants them life. I don't know what any of the writers for Star Wars are thinking, I am trying to interpret this world but there are no clear answers. I don't think there is a clear vision and that has been a problem with Star Wars for a long while now. Sorry if what I said makes no sense, I also have not seen everything Star Wars myself.

This problem isn’t a problem, it’s a fun unknown of the universe. The ghosts in the machine that enable some droids to gain a soul is part of the strange mysticism that powers interest in the Star Wars universe. I see it as the Force working through all things, not just organic life.

I always understood the droids in Solo to be revolting for no reason other than because L3 told them to. The first droid was freed, said something to the effect of, "Now what do I do?" in beeps and boops, and then was told, "I don't know. Free your brothers and sisters!" It received an order and it obeyed. Programming. Nothing more. L3 just sees what she wants to see: a revolution. But the droids around her just aren't as sophisticated as her or sentient like she is. I always took it as a metaphor for those type of people who just assume everyone in X group will feel Y way about Z cause, not realizing that maybe a whole lot of them just don't give a hoot and maybe, just maybe, X group isn't as much of a "group" as they think they are but rather they're all individuals with individual thoughts, feelings, and opinions.

Just going to say that I have felt bad when b1 battle droids have been treated as okay fodder, when they have been shown as thinking an feeling entities. It is weird that can be cute, and then supposedly funny when they are scared of being killed.

I'd say Artoo is the most sentient, I believe he's never had a memory wipe and he's been active before TPM and is still active after Rise of Skywalker. That's like 70 years plus however long he's been in service before TPM. Also C-3P0 had his memory wiped after RotS, so wiping it again at the end of Rise of Skywalker isn't the biggest thing.

There's one huge point you're all missing about why droids arent treated as if they're alive compared to if they were in our world.The Force. I think the reason SW characters dont treat droids like they're living beings is bc they have no capacity to use the force. Remember, Obi said the force is shared between all living things. Since droids don't have the possibility of using the force, then therefore they aren't actually alive.

I don’t think it’s too difficult to suggest that characters like R2 and 3PO choose to continue working with Luke/Leia of their own free will. The biggest question for me is, are all droids on a equal level of intelligence because it seems not unreasonable to read many droids as pets

To be fair, the part of the video about the Prohibition allegory doesnt 100% apply since the "alcohol" itself wasnt the problem, it was an outside substance that was putt in it. What I find jarring is that Mando and Bo pretty much gunned down some poor smuck that was just running around because he had been drugged by someone and they dont seem to really care about that at all.

To me droids always made sense, in context of star wars universe it is impossible to create a capable droid that will not create a personality. This is seen as something unwanted but necessary. It is like building an application, the more complex it is the more bugs it can have. They are not slaves, they are droids. They build them to serve, so they view them as such. The memory wipe does not always work to remove the "personality" because it's is hard to remove it while containing some of the core functions like movement, behaviour, intelligence. I think it creates an interesting tension that does need to be solved with our earth morals in mind. The more detached the universe is from our morals the better, because it is supposed to be in a galaxy far away. I don't like when sci fi imitates real life too much, it is better when it creates their own issues unnkown to us. I think it is perfectly reasonable to think that owning droids aka slaves and having full control of them is perfectly moral thing to them the same it would be to a person born in 1700s.

In the event this is explored with more nuance, which I get the feeling this episode was trying to do, the writers need to be careful not to lump all droids into the same pile. We very clearly see a diverse spectrum of droids with different thoughts on their owners, ranging from those who make friends with them to those who think all humans are abusers, which is its own form of prejudice. This is actually very important, because the droids in Solo are being abused in a way we've never seen before. Instead of restraining bolts being used to detain and resell them like Jawas do, they're being used to pacify and overwork them. L3 must only remove the bolt and say a handful of words to incite rebellion, which means the idea didn't originate with her - these particular droids were predisposed to revolt because they've been abused for so long and will probably have lifelong trauma about it, as we can see is a possibility. If L3's philosophy were to start to gain traction in multiple systems, each droid exposed to the idea *must confront their morality individually.* Furthermore, droid owners would have a spectrum of reactions, some confused as to why droids, who they see as friends, would be angry with them, some disappointed with their own morality after becoming accustomed to a society that normalized slavery by handwaving ethical programming, some angry in return that their valuable droids would betray them. This is a complex issue that cannot be solved going "oopsie-woopsy, we did a fucky-wucky, droids are free now!"

I fully agree. But my best explanation for the episode's morality is that the droids are viewed as conscious beings that are being possessed and controlled by Christopher Lloyd. Under this explanation it's more that they are being compelled against their will to be violent by an outside entity. I guess this still slides into the Dobby problem. Or, again playing devil's advocate to an overreaching degree, the droids are toasters that want to follow their individual programming whether that's as a pet or a lifter or whatever and that anything that records them activates some subtle "alert" which manifests in them saying that they just want to go back to servitude. Again, this is a stretch and not a great option, but it kind of answers it

I feel like Chopper is one of the best exemplars for droid sentience in the SW universe, because he effectively suffers from PTSD (when he sees the old A-Wing wreck, etc.).

People are very nice to AI for no reason. And AI isnt sentient

I think it's important to point out that whether some of the droid want to serve or not is also dependent on the conditions. Perhaps they do live to serve, they want to have a purpose but even in that they do not want to be in dangerous or unnecessarily dangerous situations. It's also reasonable to think they'd want to be treated with respect for the living people that they are and the value they add to the world.

I think your idea about a droid revolt/revolution as a direction to go in would be a solid choice. The magneto parallel would be narratively and dramatically interesting because of how they have historically been handled by the jedi. I can't remember if it was ever stated in the movies or outside kotor, but I believe that since droids dont interact with the force, the jedi don't consider their systemic role a problem or worth considering for re-evaluation. There was even a game recently where a Droid claiming to be a jedi was considered ludicrous and not worth taking seriously. The icing on the cake would be to make this revolutionary figure resemble a standard battle droid.

For the consistency problem.. Perhaps look at it from a different direction by asking another line of questions. How Consistent are the droids themselves? From model to model. How alike is the hardware of C3PO compared to R2D2? Compared to a B1 battle droid? To a mouse droid? How much have the droids developments been accelerated by the clone wars, where they played a big military role. What was a fringe event (a droid gaining sentience) previously, after years of experience, might now a lot more common, and requiring less and less time due to better hardware and software. Basically, ask when did Sentience among the droids become common place? Is this a developing problem, where the old line of thought is no longer true, and the galaxy at large has yet to notice? How sentient a droid is might depend on how modern their model is, and what it's designed to do. Where it was manufactured, and by whom. Droids can be looked at as not a single Species, but rather an entire Eco-system of mechanical life, with millions of variations with different degrees of complexity.

Lucas did say he was planning a civil war or civil rights stories for emancipation of droids. But does not know how in one BTS in prequel movies. Hopefully it would have payoff in the future.

I think the idea that they don't know makes sense. If you think about it, at the moment, we have engineers saying that some of the AI nowadays are self-aware, while others are disputing it. End of the day, most people don't care while something is functioning as a tool. Sentient or not. Only time things change, is when they rebel or speak out of their treatment. Even then, sometimes that doesn't even happen. So yes, to me the way things are in the Star Wars Universe looks like how reality is. Honestly, I'm more curious about their energy source, the economics of droids, how they seem to last hundreds of years without breaking down. Also looks like there was no internet in the Star Wars Universe that allows droids to upload their intelligence elsewhere.

I know you said you weren't counting the books but R2 and 3P0 serve Luke and Leah by choice. And R2 is more of a partner to Luke and even can talk him into changing his mind or plans when he disagrees

Honestly the droid problem has never really bothered me because I just accept that that’s how things work in Star Wars. If I grew up in an environment with droids that I treat well and seem happy I don’t know if I would even question it. As for the separatist thing, Clone Wars and Bad Batch go more into it but no the average Separatist had no idea about the higher machinations of their movement

K2-SO fans rise up!

I think an interesting example to add to this discussion is the Clone Troopers. Like droids, they were created to serve a purpose, and for the most part, enjoy and take pride in being soldiers. If the Clones, who aren't programmed, can be proud of what they were bred for, I don't think it's unreasonable to suggest that a droid can enjoy their work without being hard-programmed to. Another point to bring up is the fact that a droid's memory bank can be accessed by anyone with the proper tools, and as a result, there's quite a few examples where wiping a droid's memory has been done as a safety precaution more than anything else.

A third option via retcon: droids are not sentient, but are designed to mimic sentience in order to smooth interactions with sentient creatures or even just for amusement, like extremely advanced video game npcs. And sometimes those programmed personalities glitch and there are unintended consequences. Problem solved. We can have droids with fun personalities *and* none of our heroes have owned slaves. The absolute last thing we need in a world of greedy corporations actively trying to replace writers with AI is storytelling that suggests machines can ever be human.

Totally agree. Some droids feel like unthinking machines, others feel like people or at least like pets. And that's not even getting into the whole mess of L3-37 and her droid rebellion. It probably would be best if Star Wars picked a lane and stuck to it, but I don't think that'll happen anytime soon

I think one important contextual factor that Nando doesn't address is the droids L3 liberates are in Kessel, a mine planet where organic beings are also enslaved. They are not revolting against organics but along with them (against other organics), which murks the idea of how predisposed to serve they are. Maybe what the droid in Mando says is true under normal conditions but, like anyone, the droids rebel if they are mistreated and not otherwise. Also, the nepenthe iself is not what makes the droids dangerous, but the nano-droids used by Helgait. It's not that the droids have a flaw, it's that the villain is slipping drugs into their drinks

Different droids can have different sentience and desires. Droids can be all those things.

One of the aspects of droid consciousness which is rarely touched upon is whether or not they all are at the same level of consciouness. Are all astromechs designed to have the personnality that R2D2 has for example, is R2 an anomaly? Are there laws requiring regular memory wipes to avoid the drift of the droid population into consciousness? Are all droids even able to drift and mutate towards consciouness or not?

I wonder if the sentience we perceive as the audience is a reflection of the characters projecting emotions onto them. Like current AI can mimic a conversation but it’s not really a conversation but to the user it can feel very real and elicit real emotional responses . Like have you ever said “thank you” to an Alexa or google device ? Amplify that same energy 100x and maybe that’s what we’re seeing

Well, in Solo they had restraining bolts so that they would be obedient. Once removed they did whatever they wanted because they were forced to labor. Some robots "like" what they are doing because they don't know anything else. C3PO is a loyal bootlicker to whoever "owns" him. R2D2 is loyal to the rebellion and got his character from the clone wars where Anakin refused to wipe his mind despite being a security risk. They are sentient and built to be slaves.

Would definetly reccomend the Culture series if you want to read about artificial life being free and being chill with organics. Also not to nitpick, but sentience is generally defined as awareness of a beings surroundings, while sapience is generally defined as self-awareness and consciousness. Its like the difference between an animal and a human/droid.

In my opinion your solution at the end doesn't really solve anything, we won't be getting just stories set in the future - we'll most likely get a lot more stories set in the past, also with droids in it and it will all be before that droid revolution. Then, the existence of that revolution in the future even more questions EVERY character that had a droid in the past and I think that would just be even more problematic - I don't think a solution for this is that simple or even if there is one - you could have questioned the droids' sentience even in the first movie without L3 existing, the Star Wars universe was built this way from the beginning because it wasn't really the focus of the story.

There’s an episode of Rebels that might have the perfect villain set up for what you are talking about. General Kalani was a super Tactical Droid during the Clone Wars and when he herd the battle droid shut down order at the end of the war he ignored it thinking it was a trick. He and some other droids just kind of hung out acting like the Clone wars was still going on until the main Characters of Rebels showed up.

I think the easiest way to confront it and the way the Star Wars will confront it, if they ever do, is that most droids take pleasure in their job but their is a minority that hate it and none of the droids that are owned by the main characters are in that minority.

Perhaps with all the AI debate going on, there should be a series on droids, like IDK one episode per droid? Constantly getting their memories viped, and could be even woke with references to slavery or oppression-fascism as well as life, soul and religion

What a great video! I love your insights as usual.

Are they sentient, though? I feel like we're skipping really quickly from the outward expression of feelings to the supposition that they actually possess an inward flow of self-conscious experience. Even L3, who develops new ideas and has the appearance of changing desires, doesn't definitively demonstrate that. Machine sentience always has a huge question mark hanging over it, and I feel like everything we've seen in Star Wars- even when they talk about inward states- can't definitely prove that they have them. It's the difference between a fully convincing holographic version of a person and Data in Star Trek, and the fact that you can have a holographic Data (non-sentient) and Data (sentient) shows how close that razor cuts.

the house elves liking to serve isn't a problem, that is from the original legend it was based on, the problem is them not being able to choose who they serve like in the original legend, if you mistreat a brown they trash your house and leave, they were never a paralel to slaves, they were like fairies that like to do chores instead of pranks, but they were always free

Love the video but I wish you had made some comparisons to animals which I think are also representative of droids with semi-sentience and the moral issues surrounding consuming them

I don't think that Lucas et. al thought it through when they made robots that had sassy attitudes, but I also don't think that the only conclusion to land on is that droids are an enslaved sentient species. Their purpose in Star Wars is kinda similar to how animals function on a farm: some droids are companions, some provide physical labor, some process data, and so on; they are generally built to meet the needs of whatever organic life form they serve (like when Anakin built 3PO, it was to help his mom). A recent High Republic Character even has a therapy droid companion, who is essentially the same as an emotional support animal. The thing that feels ick is that droids appear to have personalities, and that personalities are a sign of sentience - ignoring the possibility that, in this galaxy that's had droids for thousands of years, it's likely that personality can be programmed into a droid's OS. Citing the High Republic again, there's a character who adjusted their droid to act more sarcastically. Even if droids appear to be sentient, they are always following some basic tenets of their *programming*; who's to say that programming can't include emulating human emotions? The difference between this and the Dobby Problem is that JKR specifically makes house elves to be a separate, sentience species. House elves aren't spells created by wizards to help them, they're creatures who just so happen to enjoy being subjugated, apparently building a society around this (do house elves reproduce? Do they have communities? We don't know because JKR is kinda bad at worldbuilding). Droids are designed and created by organic beings; even if they can have their own bars or we see the occasional solo mercenary droid there's no real droid society or existence outside of their programming. Sentience requires a lot more than just having a personality or being able to show emotions. Droids don't meet the bar for it. That doesn't mean that droids should be mistreated, or that it isn't really weird that droid programming includes the ability to feel pain. It's not perfect. But I also think that there's an explanation for how droids work that bridges the gap between advanced AI and actual sentience -- a think a lot of ppl could benefit from right now, as more and more news articles come out about chat gpt being alive.

Star wars becoming Battlestar Galactica, would be more fun for me

I think it would be really interesting to see how Finn, a character both played by a black man and, more importantly, in context, a character enslaved for most his life, would react to a Droid uprising. Afterall functionally what is the difference between a Storm Trooper who rebelled and a Droid who rebelled if both are considered sentient beings? Would that turn him against some of his friends? Would the rebels as a whole have to confront their own beliefs, after just fighting for their freedom against an oppressive regime.

On the C3PO memory wipe, I mean, setting aside the massive confusion that episode 9 has about how to use character death in a story, I thought the memory wipe was presented as tragic? I mean, they try (albeit half-heartedly) to avoid it. There's some like "isn't there some other way?" type line, iirc.

The D-O droid gives me existential dread. Droids are already too human-like to ignore how poorly they are treated. But now artificial life can learn trauma from abuse, it makes it seem like suffering is the natural conclusion that their learning AI came to. When the funny droid gets bonked on the head in the exciting adventure movie, it's not as fun with the knowledge that the silly scene would add to its internal PTSD.

Matt, the droids were always meant to be part of what Lucas even claimed to be the “lowliest” part of society. There’s actually a movie that directly influenced how droids depicted in Star Wars called Metropolis (1927). It’s a German expressionist science fiction silent movie that explores the dehumanizing effects machines have on society. This movie is currently regarded as one of the greatest films of all time. It’s further exemplified when you consider that R2 and 3p0 began as “Imperial diplomats” in the very first draft of Star Wars. Meant to reflect the mindless control an overtly oppressive government would have on two standing members of society. The fact that Anakin comes from slavery yet he also created C-3p0 isn’t a coincidence either. They’re two sides of the same coin as Anakin would always be battling for his freedom until he eventually becomes more machine than man, yet 3p0 who’s all machine has had an innate humanness to him that was taught to him by his creator, a little boy who wants to help his mom. So aren’t machines just reflections of their creators in that regard? Or is Lucas suggesting that the humans in this universe have grown more like machines?

I know that you said you weren't going to focus on anything related to the comics, but there was apparently a huge droid rebellion hundreds of years ago, and the personality core of their leader, Ajax Sigma, was unearthed during the original trilogy era, with followers rebuilding him. I don't really read the comics, but due to Star Wars Explained, I know that it's a looming threat currently (albeit one that seems to have had no effect 30 years later by the sequel era). While Star Wars as a whole doesn't understand their morality, I do think some writers are working to push them into understanding and/or making a decision.

I think they're the equivalent of working dogs, for the most part. Does cause some issues still when that work involves high level thinking, but overall, that's what they are. Not pets, not equals, not slaves. And just like with working dogs, there are personalities, and people do get attached to them. And some people dote on theirs, while others are much colder. And sometimes, an abused dog turns on its owner. Also, the rich (like the Organas) can be much more doting, while the rural farmer (like the Lars homestead) can't afford that option.

I can’t believe you missed the golden opportunity to include a clip of _Lightning McQueen_ when you said “car sentients”

I think you could have gone deeper on inhibitor chips. I guess there’s not a whole lot of lore to cover but I think they emphasise the point that their interaction with humans is filtered

The comparison of droids would be animals. Some animals have been specifically bred by humans for certain functions (dogs, horses, mules etc). They work for us and are capable of feelings at a more basic level than humans are. Some animals genuinely love to do work. Others do not. Sometimes we view it as necessary to put animals down and view that as humane, even if it’s sad. Other times it is considered downright wrong. And all of that depends on who you ask. Star Wars doesn’t know how to feel about the droids because we humans haven’t made up our minds how we feel about animals.

Someone down here put it beautifully; they didn't even properly go over the whole Finn-Stormtrooper stuff its hard to imagine them tackling this one

Tactical droid of Republic era, from the Separatist, have all tactics available from the Jedi and they know how to apply them (advance knowledge database), Commando droids special tactical units that are far more capable than normal droids (special units capable of doing specific tasks), Astromechs capable of navigating the universe and doing hyperspace jumps (for transportation and stuff), building droids (when Luke is building the Jedi Temple), Cooking droids in Coruscant, DLC-13 from prequels era, capable of doing mining. I can see a faction being anti droid, but other than that I would imagine with the tech on the SW universe, the quality of life should be way better than shown.

Just imagine - R2, one of, if not the most important droid in the history, joining the droid rebelion, or even leading it. That would make for a great seauels. But instead, we got Rey...

24:28 All I heard from that point on is just "John Brown but with Star Wars droids" and I'm not even that into Star Wars but that premise is one of the coolest ones I think I've ever heard

Some droids want to work and do so happily, some don't and do so under control of a bolt. It's filled with shades of grey.

10:09 *separatist battle droids 11:38 *Republic 11:41 *Republic

Love ur videos and ur ideas. U literally are one of the top creates I watch. Would love if u could make a comic or a comic movie trilogy.

I took hellgate as a fascist supporter of dooku. He is living in a communist world where citizens are free from labour to pursue their passions. He thinks this is making them weak and useless, he wants them to get back to work

Chopper is alive. The droid rebellion in Solo tells me that theyre alive. The battle droids are even afraid of death.

Lola makes more sense to be a nanny droid. Like how parents set up cameras for the babysitter and also act as a tracking device.

Ive been hoping whenever we get a new trilogy in the future of the series that a droid faction will play a major role. It just feels right. Everything you've pointed out here could be used to build to a major story that answers these questions. I hope they take advantage of it. It doesn't have to be as simple as droid rebellion, but it could be.

I think the problem with this is that Solo is unique in portraying droids as being in general need of / desire for liberation. Maybe this could be explained a s a confusion between a uniquely defective droids desire for personal identity and freedom, vs a typical droids desire to have a restraining bolt removed and serve a master who will maintain them well.

…and then ChatGPT came along and really wrecked the simplicity of sentience :). Is it sentient? Or is sentience easier to fake than we suspected? If sentience (although really it’s sapience here) is something deeper than just replicating human like behavior, then maybe it’s fine: the droids just have behaviors that replicate many different human behaviors, but it’s only statistical modeling, and just an illusion. I don’t know. It’s a new topic we’re just starting to discuss.

Thank you! I had the same thoughts after that Mando episode, it just doesn't add up.

Great video! Been thinking about this subject for a while and you handled it really well. Although he may be different than the droids in Star Wars, Data in Star Trek: The Next Generation is definitely the best representation of humanoid AI in media I've seen; the series really wrestles with some of the ideas you've discussed here. If you haven't watched it yet, the TNG season 2 episode "The Measure of a Man" is fantastic and addresses themes of slavery and the rights of artificial intelligence. I would definitely recommend watching it if you haven't seen it. We need an equivalent Star Wars movie/episode like it.

To be fair to Star Wars, the question of machine sentience (or perhaps more significantly, sapience) is a thorny one even in real life. For instance, we know that 100% non-sapient machines can be programmed to seem sapient (see: ChatGPT). If that fact is well known in-universe, it may perhaps explain why behaviors that seem sapient would be ignored or dismissed by characters who would object to the enslavement of "organics".

Here’s my question: are droids programmed to feel? You said 3CPO gets afraid for his safety. But what if that’s been programmed? Hypothetically, if there was a switch to turn that off, is that the same? I legit don’t know the answer. Also, if this is discussed in SW already then my bad lol

Yeah it was either coucil of geeks or pop culture detective that put me on to the L337 thing and ever since my views on droids has just changed fully and it makes watching the movies....kinda gross. Especially knowing she gets turned into the falcon.

Lola is a sentient tamagotchi.