ST What if the TFA spacecraft have their own AI?

Hey everyone, sorry if I made some of you rather irritated by posting as my dear friend, the Millennium Falcon herself... I know it has gotten on some of your sensitive nerves and I won't do it again (and even if I still do, better mention in advance first)!

But seriously, let's look at this scenario, with regards to Artificial Intelligence in machinery. If the Millennium Falcon, Kylo's Shuttle, Rey's Speeder, or even Black Leader X-Wing have their own AI, a la Knight Rider's KITT (that cool black car) or JARVIS from The Avengers, how would things be different in the SW universe then?

Maybe you'll really see a wisecracking Millennium Falcon like myself, always making fun of her pilot but able to be serious when defending herself from enemies? And has the capability to think for herself, especially with regards to defense and attack strategy?



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AI already exists in Star Wars. C-3PO is AI. R2-D2 is AI. The Battledroids of Trade Federation are AI. Any droid that processes inputs and builds an internal representation of the external world is AI. Droids in Star Wars are narrators, comic relief and stand-in for an oppressed proletariat.

AI of the doomsday / Terminator variety is science fiction, which is where the consequences of the premise have to be pursued.

 

This just reminded me that I use to pretend the Slave One would talk to Boba Fett.
It's like the ship in Battle Beyond the Stars come to think of it.
Actually though, I wouldn't want this in a Star Wars movie because everything else has it. The Enterprise, "Mother" in Alien, etcetera.

 

If she ship could attack or defend or even fly itself, it would've made the captain pretty irrelevant.

 

We know that the MF's computer does has some rudimentary droid-like brain. It's revealed in ESB when 3PO is trying to talk to it.

 

The Millennium Falcon have not one, but three droid brains forming a net with their main navigation computer. And we have seen that all X-Wings have their own droid that works as its navigation computer.

So starships do have AIs. But those AIs aren't allowed to control the starship. Star Wars' droids tend to become weird and quirky if they don't get regularly mind-wiped (and in some rare cases, they go full psycho), and you don't want to be inside a neurotic sentient starship that can have anxiety attacks or throw tantrums when you don't pay it attention...

Also, we know, thanks to the Clone Wars, that droids are usually worse pilots than trained organics.

 

Okay, let's take the premise seriously for a moment and see if it really WOULD work to have A.I. on the Falcon.

The difficulty is that the Falcon already has a personality, so to speak, and adding a voice to it would actually make it less interesting. Part of the fun of that personality is trying to guess what she's thinking.

In ANH, the Falcon had no personality to speak of, beyond the fact that the ship was distinctively designed and that she worked when you wanted her to work. The actual personality of the ship, if there truly is one, only became apparent in TESB because they made the functioning of the ship a plot point: the Falcon will work for you when you want her to work - IF you treat her right, and IF she feels like it. That carried over into ROTJ, even though there were no real expressions of it in that film, and so you felt for her when she lost her antenna dish. In TFA, the Falcon is being mistreated in every way possible, so believe it or not, I was scared that the ship wasn't gonna fly for these kids and their beach-ball droid. All that was a remnant of the work they did in TESB.

But the thing is, it would be less fun to have that spelled out for me by a talking computer voice. If you want to see how that would work out, try watching Battle Beyond the Stars sometime - it's one of those "so-good-it's-bad" movies. The Falcon is more subtle, and more enjoyable for that. I had to FIGURE OUT the personality of the Falcon myself BECAUSE they didn't spell it out for me; that made it more engaging for the audience, more interactive, and hence more interesting.

And in any case, who could they get to PLAY the Falcon's voice? Whoever they cast won't possibly measure up to what we may have imagined she'd sound like. Go ahead and entertain thoughts of who they'd cast as the voice if you like; I just disagree with the notion of giving the ship a voice on philosophical grounds.

That said, I do get the impulse. I grew up on Knight Rider. I got a Pontiac Firebird because of that show, and then I did a fair impression of William Daniels telling me I need to activate the turbo boost...

 

Farscape Moya, Talyn.

 

Gene Roddenberry's Andromeda, the ship's AI, Rommie, was played by Lexa Doig. She was my favorite character on that show. They made a few episodes that asked questions about what it means to be an AI and a warship.

 

I always like to imagine that the Millennium Falcon has a JARVIS-like personality and suddenly talked to Rey and Finn, when they were piloting her... Probably would give them a shock the first time!

And she would go like this (now I'm typing as her): "Who in the world are you people? And why are you at my helm? Are you causing trouble with those pesky TIE Fighters, AGAIN?!"


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I've always assumed they did have AI, at least the non-fighters.

 

Not a good idea

 

Haha! We already have evil, saboteur droids in the Resistance.



Let's not give that power to their ships.

PZ-4CO: "Daisy, Daisy..."
Rey: "My name's Rey."
PZ-4CO: "Oh, sorry! Slip of the tongue..."

 

Majel Barret immediately comes to mind...

 

She's dead.

 

Harrison Ford.

 

Against himself as Han Solo?

Come on, people, if you're gonna do this, take it seriously!

 

Droids are already smart and they are treated as things.
It wouldn't change anything besides some extra funny lines added.

 

Star Wars already has those kind of AI-controlled ships in the form of droid starfighters. Or standard ships operated by droid crew. And we know that astromechs are capable of piloting the ships they're plugged into. Chopper also shoots down a TIE with the Ghost's turret at one point.

Chances are high R2-D2 could fly the Falcon if it had appropriate hardware for him to connect the way he does in a starfighter.

Now I'm picturing R2 saying "ASSUMING DIRECT CONTROL" as all the Falcon's blinkenlights change color/pattern to match his.