droids cant think ?

"if droids could think there would be none of us here would there " - obi wan kenobi

I was under the impression that having conversations and getting emotional required thinking . I thought all droids think , they talk to each other react to certain comments in different ways , get mad , sad , glad , and come up with creative solutions to problems . and some points in the saga r2 is more smart then the humans . in TPM he has to "THINK " about a solution to fix the sheild generator . every situation is different so how could you program a droid to handle every single possible situation possible , there has to be thinking on some level involved . someone help me understand this ...

 

I think its an error really..or just a saying.

This could be a serious topic over in the Saga forum though.

In ESB. C3PO says "I thought that hairy beast would be the end of me"

And in AOTC didn't 3PO say "for a mechanic, you do a great deal of thinking" or something.

Its seems pretty obvious that the droids can think and are self-aware. IMO there's some kind of neural networks being used.

 

I always thought that particular line was placed there in order to further drive home the point that clones are superior soldiers than droids. Afterall, when touring the clone facility on Kamino, Obi-Wan is bluntly told that the clones are made to think creatively.





Mace Windy,
too windy for spoilers!

 

They can't think in the sense of "I think therefore I am", they can can consider the alternatives to what they can do and so on, but they are constrained by logic. As was pointed out on the Kamino Clone tour, Clones can think creativley, droids cant.

 

It's the sort of argument with any AI system. Can you create a robot that can accually think and have emotions? No one knows, although apparently, Obi-Wan does.

 

Norton Utilities can "think" but that doesn't mean it is sentient.

The great thing about Star Wars is that droids can be tortured. Burning a Droid's feet makes it scream. Is it a pointless exercise, where it is just programmed to scream when it senses heat, or does it really feel pain and fear in all the emotional and physical ways a human does?

C3P0 certainly wants to preserve himself in the ESB Asteroid Field scene, but is he just programmed to preserve himself, or is he sentient?

Droids in Star Wars were a fairy Tale element, more than a Sci Fi elemenet. The battledroids are meant to be more soul-less. Like weapons. But sometimes they express fear, too. So it is fairly obscure as to whether droids can think.

In Spileberg's "AI" Gigolo Joe is not made to be sentient, but he actually turns out to be. It was unforseen by the humans. The same themes run in Matrix and Terminator, where robots deveop a self identity. Perhaps in the Star Wars universe, C3p0 actually does have his own "soul" and self-awareness, but everybody thinks he's just a programmed lump of metal.

 

I always assumed Obi-Wan's line: "well, if droids could think..." was referring to the idea of droids thinking outside their designated programming. Droids can certainly think, but they don't have wills of their own. They must do what they are ordered to do. Were they able to "think" and have their own wills to do whatever they please, they would probally have taken over the galaxy.

 

ST-TPM-ASF-TNE hit the nail on the head. Obviously they can be self-sufficient and be decision-makers to a degree, but they can't rebel or anything. If they could, they would have wiped out sentient beings.

<[-]> Saber

 

I also agree that it is more there programming than actual thinking.

 

Droids can kind of think. But I think what Obi-wan meant was them being AI. Which we all know what AI is. Droids still need humans for somethings.

 

Having studied Artificial Intelligence as part of my degree, I discovered that the definition of "thinking" and "intelligence" is rather blurry. We really have no way of defining these terms other than to compare forms of potential intelligence with our own understanding of what human intelligence is.

For example on one hand a computer is incapable of creative thinking but can solve certain problems much more efficiently than the human mind.

Obi-Wan's comment wasn't some deep philosophical observation, it was just a comment.

Obi-Wan will meet his match in the cybernetic department in the next movie, anyway.