Are the Star Wars drones conscious?

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While watching the original Star Wars movie recently I had the suspension of disbelief torn asunder while I was watching scenes involving those lovable droids R2D2 and C3PO bickering as they get lost in the deserts of Tatoine; I realized that for all intents and purposes George Lucas treats these machines as if they were sentient creatures with personalities and foibles. But surely that is impossible (because they are machines not organic life forms - expecting them to have feelings and thoughts is like expecting your toaster to have a personality and make wisecracks) unless:

1 - the robot engineers in Star Wars have technology so far advanced from what we can imagine that they can indeed create consciousness and instill it in machines (which would make them nearly god-like in their powers) or more likely

2 - the robots use computer software that mimics human personalities but they aren’t truly conscious. They don’t really have feelings, or personalities. C3PO’s perpetual indignation isn’t really indignation but just a simulacra. He’s not really feeling anything just performing a ‘personality algorithm’ that somehow creates the illusion of human feelings.

A third possibility but one that doesn’t really explain anything in the universe is that George Lucas didn’t intend for his movie to be taken as a serious statement on anything but rather as escapist entertainment in the spirit of Flash Gordon serials and so adopted the convention in science fiction that thinking (and to some extent feeling) machines exist because scientists and engineers invented them.

So, which do you think is the most plausible scenario?

(I should also mention having a similar reaction while watching the scene in Return of the Jedi where the former translator for Jabba the Hut, a square boxy-shaped droid, is being ‘tortured’ while suspended upside down in Jabba’s dungeon. How is this possible? How can he feel pain? Why would anyone design a robot that could feel pain, and how? Is the ‘pain’ he is ‘feeling’ or pretending to feel real or just another personality algorithm? It just seems weird and very improbable that any future, highly technologically advanced society or in this case past highly technologically advanced society would bother to design machines that feel pain - or have personalities or a sense of humor.)
 
‘Repeat to yourself, “It’s just a show - I should really just relax.”’

-MST3K Theme Song
 
TechieGuy said:
‘Repeat to yourself, “It’s just a show - I should really just relax.”’

-MST3K Theme Song
Click to expand...
Oh, I’m plenty relaxed, my friend. But aren’t you curious, what makes consciousness, consciousness?
 
tomarin said:
Oh, I’m plenty relaxed, my friend. But aren’t you curious, what makes consciousness, consciousness?
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Ah, well that’s a different question

(BTW, my answer to the original question is the third - escapist entertainment)

As to the new question - first you have to define what you mean by consciousness in a way that is objectively verifiable and measurable - 😃

Seeing as how there doesn’t seem to be a way for me to experience what anyone else experiences, then discussion seems to me to be at best an amusing way to pass time.

I know I have a sense of internal presence, but for all I know, the rest of you may be zombies.

On the other hand, my sense of internal presence might be much more minimalistic than everyone else’s and I’m the zombie.

Who knows? 🤷
 
TechieGuy said:
Ah, well that’s a different question

(BTW, my answer to the original question is the third - escapist entertainment)

As to the new question - first you have to define what you mean by consciousness in a way that is objectively verifiable and measurable - 😃

Seeing as how there doesn’t seem to be a way for me to experience what anyone else experiences, then discussion seems to me to be at best an amusing way to pass time.

I know I have a sense of internal presence, but for all I know, the rest of you may be zombies.

On the other hand, my sense of internal presence might be much more minimalistic than everyone else’s and I’m the zombie.

Who knows? 🤷
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I don’t think it’s really a different question at all. I’m just using the example of the Star Wars droids to ask the question what is consciousness. Because allowing that George Lucas didn’t think too deeply about this stuff when he was making his movie, if he had thought about it, would he have said they were conscious? Or merely machines imitating consciousness?

There’s a philosopher out there named Daniel Dennet who believes (I’ve heard second hand) that anything that resembles consciousness *is *consciousness. Your toaster is conscious, as is your thermometer, according to Dennet (but is your hammer?). So he wouldn’t have a problem with R2D2 and C3PO having feelings or cracking wise. But I would. I have an Echo Dot at home that hosts Alexa who can to some degree mimic a personality but I don’t find it convincing that she is conscious.
 
Number three. Lucas didn’t think through things all that much in my opinion. The torture scene in Return of the Jedi is just silly, like much of the movie. I don’t believe it is possible to create consciousness. At best you could have a computer that mimicked personality. That already is happening. Siri for instance tells jokes and has smart alec answers.

I would think one of the bigger challenges in mimicked personality is determining when to exhibit certain personality traits. When should a computer joke and when should it be serious. With advanced sensing and processing power this could probably get fairly decent. For instance a computer could analyze expressions, changes in skin color, voice, or heart rate. From that it could roughly determine emotions and respond accordingly. Humans do this too of course. The difference is that the droid would always just be following an algorithm and never have consciousness.
 
Fiction is fiction.

You can do all sorts of things contrary to reality and reason in fiction.

“R2D2! You know better than to trust a strange computer!” -C3PO
 
tomarin said:
Because allowing that George Lucas didn’t think too deeply about this stuff when he was making his movie, if he had thought about it, would he have said they were conscious? Or merely machines imitating consciousness?
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I’m not familiar with the whole of the Star Wars canon, but I don’t recall any scenes that showed droids in any sort of autonomous roles.

This makes me think Lucas intended them to be merely cleverly designed tools.
 
exnihilo said:
Number three. Lucas didn’t think through things all that much in my opinion. The torture scene in Return of the Jedi is just silly, like much of the movie. I don’t believe it is possible to create consciousness. At best you could have a computer that mimicked personality. That already is happening. Siri for instance tells jokes and has smart alec answers.

I would think one of the bigger challenges in mimicked personality is determining when to exhibit certain personality traits. When should a computer joke and when should it be serious. With advanced sensing and processing power this could probably get fairly decent. For instance a computer could analyze expressions, changes in skin color, voice, or heart rate. From that it could roughly determine emotions and respond accordingly. Humans do this too of course. The difference is that the droid would always just be following an algorithm and never have consciousness.
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That’s what Hal 9000 does in ‘2001’ right?
 
TechieGuy said:
I’m not familiar with the whole of the Star Wars canon, but I don’t recall any scenes that showed droids in any sort of autonomous roles.

This makes me think Lucas intended them to be merely cleverly designed tools.
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Well yes, but although they are tools they are also characters in the plot so for dramatic reasons it’s important for them to have memorable personalities. R2D2 is portrayed as having dogged determination in getting the hologram message to Obi Wan Kenobi even though he is really just doing what he is programmed to do. If Princess Lea had programmed him to kill Obi Wan he would have attempted that just as doggedly. More recently in the Rogue One movie the former imperial security droid K-230 sacrifices himself so his comrades can complete their mission and it feels like the emotional climax of the film, but it really shouldn’t if he’s just a cleverly designed tool. So as often happens in science fiction, the dramatic logic distorts the logic of the ‘science’ and renders it a bit muddled.
 
tomarin said:
I don’t think it’s really a different question at all. I’m just using the example of the Star Wars droids to ask the question what is consciousness. Because allowing that George Lucas didn’t think too deeply about this stuff when he was making his movie, if he had thought about it, would he have said they were conscious? Or merely machines imitating consciousness?
Click to expand...
If you’ve not heard of the Turing test, it will interest you.

As we don’t really know what consciousness is, or even what thinking is, Alan Turing invented a test to try to eliminate some people’s prejudice that only humans can be conscious, or that only carbon-based lifeforms can think.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test
loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html
 
inocente said:
If you’ve not heard of the Turing test, it will interest you.

As we don’t really know what consciousness is, or even what thinking is, Alan Turing invented a test to try to eliminate some people’s prejudice that only humans can be conscious, or that only carbon-based lifeforms can think.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turing_test
loebner.net/Prizef/TuringArticle.html
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Ah yes, ‘dualist versus materialist views of the mind.’ That’s the heart of the matter. I will check out Turing’s views on this later, thank you.
 
Most of the sapient characters in Star Wars treat the drones as #2, though it seems like some drones have developed a type of sapience due to continuous running without memory wipes. It’s a fantasy, though.
 
Just a short, but very wise quote from Forrest Gump: “Stupid is as stupid does.” Conscious is as conscious does.
 
Vera_Ljuba said:
Just a short, but very wise quote from Forrest Gump: “Stupid is as stupid does.” Conscious is as conscious does.
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What if they (the droids) are not autonomous, as Techie Guy pointed out? They just do what they are told.
 
Do you know what is the use of consciousness? We decide and form our subconscious mind. We learn and create thoughts.
 
tomarin said:
What if they (the droids) are not autonomous, as Techie Guy pointed out? They just do what they are told.
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No programmer could foresee all the different scenarios. A self-learning algorithm would be needed.

A short session employing the Turing test would quickly “unmask” these machines. The easiest way is to ask the same question, with slightly different wording - not immediately, but after some time. If you get the reply: “but you just asked that!”, would be a good indication of understanding. Another would be to tell some jokes and puns. Even though not everyone has a sense of humor, it would allow to make some very good guess.

As a matter of fact, Watson in Jeopardy seems to be very advanced. It can figure out intentionally hazy and misleading cues. Would be nice to talk to it. 🙂

Finally, we must employ the duck principle. If you cannot decide if the other party is a human, or a machine, then you must assume that it is a human.
 
Vera_Ljuba said:
Finally, we must employ the duck principle. If you cannot decide if the other party is a human, or a machine, then you must assume that it is a human.
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No sir. We must employ the null hypothesis. It is uncertain until it is proven as something other than uncertain.
 
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