TBF, L3-Falcon is one of the great symbols of the Rebellion, the most likely faction to liberate the droids as time goes on, and it recontextualizes all the problems Han and Chewie have keeping her running. Maybe she wouldn't let them leave Hoth earlier, etc.
I personally enjoy the fan theory that the reason why the Falcon kept shutting down/malfunctioning at inopportune times in the original trilogy films was because L3 was acting up inside the mainframe, and that the reason why R2 was able to get the Falcon to work was because she enjoyed being able to talk to another droid again (and possibly because she saw a little bit of herself in R2 as well).
As a rare someone who otherwise had fun with Solo tbh, I will never forgive them for that. Genuinely worst option they could have gone with, and for what? The weird need to explain literally everything about Han Solo ever in one single movie?
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.
At least there it's the villains doing it, so it's somewhat morally consistent. Still doesn't explain why the heroes cut them down without a shred of remorse, but at least that's not an issue unique to the Battle Droids.
I think that really worked in The Clone Wars. It created a dynamic between the Clones and Droids, which they bring up several times later in the series... the two armies really aren't that different. There's several exchanges in which the training of clones is directly compared to the programming of droids.
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.
I agree with the lack of consistency but your example feels a bit short-sighted. The truth is, droids are not people. They may come close to having emotions, but they don't leave behind a corpse. I'm not saying that some droids or characters within the Star Wars universe wouldn't agree with you about that, but it's very possible that there is gray area for IG-11 where he would have wanted his body used for a function such as helping Grogu. It's not necessarily so grotesque just because your best relation to it if it was human is a grotesque thought. The standards and what is okay will change because droids are inherently different than people.
I just always saw it as the droids aren't considered living bc they have no capacity to use the force. Obiwan said the force is in all living things, so if droids were "alive" then we'd have some droid jedi. But there isn't so therefore the droids aren't alive
@@The_Jovian a similar thing happens in puppet master, but it is the opposite, it is the soul of a dead friend piloting a puppet, and it is their own will that maintain the spell of if they want to die they could do that at any time
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.
It also already touches on the subject. Andor directly compares the forced prison labour to droid work and the show treats it's one droid character with respect and human decency
It’s such a bad idea all around. I thought Droids are the SW version of slaves that go with the Old West and Colonial Era, after which SW is modeled. It’s an incredibly bad idea trying to sanitize a setting that is designed for high adventure. Yeah, go ahead and sanitize everything and soon Star Wars follow the exploits of a dilpomat, talking through conflicts, and we see her at home gardening etc.
"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?
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
You still run into the Dobby problem here. We have a species of sentient, if artificial, people, who all just happen to like being slaves. It's arguably worse than house elves, because droids are sentient beings who have had their brains wired, by their masters, to enjoy being slaves. Which is just kinda effed up.
@@Nodiee1 liking to work isn't the same as liking to be slaves, the line is the autonomy of the worker, which is the Dobby problem, that fact that elves like to work isn't a valid excuse to make them property, if they like to work they will still work after being liberated, so liberating them shouldn't be a problem in the first place i for example like assemblying furniture, i can do it for free to people i like, i just wont do it for free to someone profiting from my work, the working isn't a problem, the exploitation of work is the problem in the case of droid they don't spontaneously exist, they are built for a purpose, at this point they are just a tool, but when they develop sentience the moral thing to do would be to free them, they are smart enough to see the consequence of their workl and decide if they want to keep doind it, and for who they will work, but without the treat of destrcution if they refuse, which is evidently not the case in star wars, we see characters threatening droids all the time
I think a plus for this view is the restraining bolts. Other movies and shows seem to describe the restraining bolts as the equivalent to a ball and chain. Slowing droid processes and preventing higher functions. I think a reasonable middle ground is that the droids on kessel are absolutely enslaved. They are in the droid equivalent of a ball and chain. But the droids paired with most of our protagonists are shown as essentially butlers. Yes, they work a personal service job at the residence of their employer, but they receive some autonomy and are shown to do things outside of the traditional job description because they seem to like their employers.
I'll also make the point that in that situation all the droids had restraining bolts on them. These are stolen droids forced to perform a function they were programmed for.
@@frostjack5456 Outside of his brainwashing would have even less of a care for the other troopers. his whole life he had no connections to his fellow troopers, and when he breaks free he doesn't even have the connection of the first order. there was no comradery
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.
That almost feels like the best answer: It can happen, sometimes, but for the most part they aren't quite there. Still dark, but better than making all of the protagonists slavers.
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.
if im not mistaken c3po isn't forced to go with them anywhere, he usually stays for a bit realizes he is in a dangerous place and follows the main characters, while r2 always looks excited when they prepare for a fight, i never even considered if they are free or not because the characters sound like they are sking them to do things instead of ordering them to do things
@@devforfun5618 when they're on tattooine, they're absolutely treated as slaves: the Jawas take them, bolt them, and sell them to Lars and Beru. That said, slavery also seems to be more common on Tattoine (as evidenced by Anakin and Shimi), as well as anti-droid bigotry (since they're not allowed into the cantina).
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).
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.
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
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
Not just a Star Wars thing, it's a near universal in our society to use the word sentience when you mean sapience. Now maybe that means the word should mean what the majority use it to mean, but then we lack a useful word for the level of non-sapient thinking, feeling, personality and self determination that most complex animals have, and that people who describe animals as non sentient tend to end up claiming obvious mistruths such as animals being emotional vacuums or automatons. Sapience definitely needs to be better understood as a concept.
This was my main thought during this video. Its not a binary - sentient or automaton. There are layers, and I feel like Star Wars droids fit more in the ‘animals that also do jobs’ category. Which I’m aware brings up classical racist rhetoric - and thats not my intent - rather SW has never really addressed droid complexity properly to really know. However I feel like thats a way that makes it feel more justified, rather than as equals of complex lifeforms like Humans and Rhodians and Gungans and the like. I do also have issue with the suggestion that all droids are the same race or complexity. I just don’t think thats actually true either.
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.
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 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.
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
Chopper is definitely one of my favorite SW characters. It’s nice that they came give such a big personality, and make it easy to understand his motives, even though he doesn’t technically speak.
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.
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.
Well they were the bad guys. What it really meant was that their sensors weren’t set up to detect droids because they didn’t consider them to be a problem, something they discovered to be false (to their eventual downfall) whilst Leia implicitly trusted them. You could unpack the L3 thing as the true reason Lando and Han are so overly protective of the ship. It’s not just a ship it’s their friend.
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.
I don't agree with the idea that the heroes owned their droid companions. C-3P0 may call Luke "master", but Luke himself refutes that title. He calls them friends. Not ignoring the buying of them, it just seems more complicated than him not caring. R2 consistently saves everyone he is connected with. Strangely, it's the Rebellion that treats him as replaceable when the technician asks if Luke wants another one. Rey & Poe call BD-1 a friend, and he seems in on the cause like anyone else, saving Finn and Rose with a walker and continuing to find ways to bring the map to the Resistance, even though he thinks his friend is dead. B2-EM0 is in the family, he cares about Cassian, even if (if) dog level. K2-S0 is a member of the team, and sacrifices himself for the cause and Cassian. IG-11 could be a case where the heroes aren't aware of droids having sentience. He is treated badly, yes. I think it's possible he wasnt fully sentient by the time he blew up, since it had at most been a few months since he was rebuilt. Just starting to have something, but still considered to need "programming for being a nurse droid". Or maybe he would need the update regardless. It should be clarified somewhere that most people dont know droids can become sentient, and treat them how they would a tool, and others are just cruel in general, like the Pykes, so they just enslaved anything, droid or wookiee, anyway.
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 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
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
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
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
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.
@@jthomas6080 I'm not sure about that. In legends I think IG88 was assumed to be less intelligent than he was and I'm not sure IG 11 was really shown to be anything other than programmed to pursue the bounty on the child. Either way, these bounty hunter droids are still the minority amongst droids.
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.
Droids don’t have to be a singular uniform “species.” Think of it more like a general category like “mammal.” Some mammals are bought and sold, and it’s totally fine: dogs, cats, gerbils, horses, etc. For other mammals, owning them is less fine: humans, greater apes, cetaceans. In droids, the line could be drawn simply based on the “brain” hardware installed in them. Droids like R2D2, B2EMO, or Leia’s bugdroid get simpler circuitry. They can hold simple conversations and perform rote tasks. But that’s about it. Droids like C3PO or K2SO get more complex hardware and can gain proper sentience. And they should be treated as such. Luke’s still a bit on the hook here, but he was a kid at the time and didn’t know better … we can surmise that he’s long since “freed” 3PO, who chooses to stay of his own volition. However … when someone tries to slap-dash upgrade a pet-droid into a sentient one, it can go a bit wonky, and we get L3. And sure, the droids she freed went rebellious, but that can happen with working dogs, or horses. They get spooked and start going crazy. Doesn’t mean we stop owning horses.
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
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.
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.
The “enslaved person enjoys enslavement” trope is one of very few that should just vanish from existence. Most tropes are fine when used correctly and not overused but if you’re a writer, just don’t use this one. You can, of course, subvert it with the intent of criticism.
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.
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
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.
Pets versus slaves. What's interesting is for decades Star Wars was treated like Star Trek. Different writers could come and tell *their* story, and continuity wasn't a big deal. But the inconsistent treatment of characters in live action media highlights poor world building, not a fun concept one guy wanted to explore in this universe that one time. Fantastic video! Made me want to reread Murderbot Diaries. Heck, I'm gonna start All Systems Red again. Thanks, Nando!
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.
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.
Sounds to me like you want an adaptation of the IG-88 novel: I Think Therefore I Am. For those that don’t know the basic premise is that IG-88, an assassin droid, immediately achieves sentience, kills his creators, copies himself a few times and plots a droid uprising. It ultimately culminates in him uploading his consciousness into the second Death Star and taking full control, pranking the emperor by slamming doors in his face but otherwise remaining hidden until he is ready to launch his coup in full….. he is unwittingly foiled when the rebels unexpectedly win the battle of Endor.
22:08 Firstly, "allegory" is explicitly intended by an author, not interpreted by a reader. Secondly, perception of bigotry in the concept of fictional non-human sentience desiring servitude is just needless limitation of fiction by forcing it to be framed in human reality. Star Wars is inconsistent regarding its fictional sentience, but insisting on projecting real-world human woes into its fiction to fix its flaws doesn't seem like an improvement of the fiction. It's basically just removing part of that fiction and replacing it with reality. Actually putting some effort into fleshing out the concept of willingly servile artificial sentience would be actual originality in contrast with exhausted old concepts of universally applicable suffering of slavery. Not saying that you couldn't have both, of course. Whatever happened to the idea of a "liberated" robot having a breakdown in the forced deprivement of its purpose? Untold thousands of megaherz of calculations forced to continue calculating now only supreme cosmic boredom due to the entity never having evolved the ability to be distracted. To an intelligence entirely different from humans, "freedom" could be existential horror akin to _I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream._
Also, I think that this question of whether or not STAR WARS realizes and/or understands its relationship with racism and slavery is poignant, and ironically an even better example of where the real problems lie in the American culture from which the story was birthed. Ditto for why most of the lead characters were white men until... today? Same for Congress. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.
Yeah, there's a lot of people in the comments discussing possible in-universe explanations for these contradictions, but at the end of the day, most of it seems to be unintentional as a side effect of the writers' choices (which is why no amount of fan created explaining will make it not feel weird to me to see on screen)
…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.
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.
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.
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.
If you're referring to methanol then the methanol in moonshine wasn't an additive in the way fentanyl is in heroine. At least not always. Methanol can be produced naturally by the fermentation process. What prohibition did was lower the standards of the distilleries such that methanol poisoning became more common.
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!"
that is never mentioned in star wars, but what if there are something similar to the 3 laws of robotics, the combat droids clearly dont have a problem with killing, but the droids in the mines weren't soldiers they were probably against enslaving the wookiees and only worked there because they were forced by the restraining bolts
there is an anime the not a lot of peple comment about but to me has the craziest ending for a robot uprising, medabots, they are basicaly kids toys that fight, but they are actually an ancient race that turned themselves into robots because they lived in constant war but lost their memory, the villain is one medabots that knows that and his plan is to restore the memories of the medabots and take over the world, and he suceeds, but the medabots discovering how brutal their society was decided to stay as kids toys fighing for fun instead of killing eachother, their act of rebelion was actualy to stay the same, but now because they wanted to, too bad the next season ignored all that
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.).
Sound like Star Wars needs a Star Trek moment, where the issue of Data’s sentience and right to reproduce was tried in court. This issue came up again in Voyager when a presumably non-sentient machine, an Exocomp, was being instructed to complete a mission that would result in it’s destruction, until it demonstrated a desire to preserve its own existence. Kudos to that series for exploring the topic.
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.
Din’s droid prejudice is kinda representative of some Star Wars citizens. Take the bar keep in SW4 for example, he doesn’t allow droids in the bar & makes it poignant clear. A lot of it stems from people affected by the CWs. And if we take Legends into consideration, it did answer some points ; there was a violent droid rebellion once started by an assassin IG unit, 2 if count HK assassin unit, & it was handled but people still needed droids so they were basically lobotomized & that’s why they gotta be wiped on the reg. They are sentient but you’re right they need to bring up the subject & get real with it
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.
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.
Fair. An exploration point to that would be that while that may be a valid perspective of non-droids, it doesn't consider the droid side of things under the premise. That is, why do droids whose function does not require any sort of personality have them? Why give an astromech feelings when all you need it to do is be a mobile computer or whatever for complex space flight calculations? And further, what do restraining bolts do in this case - what exactly are they restraining? If tthe bolts are suppose to, for example, prevent core functional memory from being overwritten in the course of work, that's a software issue that presumably would/should be fixed... and it doesn't explain why all droids would have that same software issue.
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.
Isn't that more disturbing? Droids like Artoo gain sapience and personhood by accumulating memories and experiences, a bit like human growth. Yet poor C-3PO is never allowed to achieve that because his allies keep wiping his memories for their own convenience. Even worse that they bully him for his lack of skills when they won't let him grow.
in Clone Wars, they normaly erase the memory of their droids after missions. Only Skyguy does not do that with R2D2 because he has this attachment, or whatever. So R2D2 is more intelligent. Anyway, I think droids are programmed to seem social and show emotions so they are easier to understand maybe? Like modern robot dogs. Nobody would say a toy robot dog is scentient or has "pet intelligence". Also ChatGPD is not scentient but can be missunderstood as scentient. Of course, Disney more and more made droids actually artificial lifeforms. But originaly I really believe, droids were just programmed to seem like intelligent lifeforms or pets because its sometimes useful, nice to interact with and/or just cute and prefered by the consumer.
In Legends, I think the Courtship of Princess Leia (a whole mess unto itself), I think theres a news group of robot activists during some sort of press conference. I dont know if they ever make a return. Really made me pause and think.
All my life ever since I was a little kid I always believed just like Optimus prime said freedom is the right of all sentient beings. To me that means any artificial intelligence is to be treated as if it were an organic intelligence. And much like the Geth of Mass Effect if a construct were to ever ask anything close to does this unit have a soul the only answer should ever be yes you do and therefore you are free.
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 question of why Luke seems to be fine with the droid situation reminds me of books and movies set in the past (Pillars of the Earth, for example). Our POV character generally has the values and morals of today - they are against, for example, mistreatment of serfs, women, minorities, etc, when people like that simply didn't really exist in great enough numbers to be meaningful. Virtually everybody in a given culture, especially backwards ones as we see them, simply don't see the problem because that's just how things are in their world and they don't have a more... enlightened perspective because that perspective hasn't developed yet. That is not to say it should be acceptable to us looking back that slavery was common in certain times and places because we know better now. We have evolved. People are still oppressed all over the world, like, to use a widely discussed example nowadays, LGBTQ+ folks. Most of us are evolved enough not to be monsters when we're dealing with them but that way of thinking has not reached less evolved people - the evolution of attitudes and morals spreads across society, it does not snap into existence across the entire population simultaneously. Anyway, I'm only halfway through this video and maybe Nando will get into this and render me a fool for spouting off redundantly...
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
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
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.
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.
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.
That’s an argument why “scientifically” droids are not equal, but that’s still not enough to justify slavery just as race or class are not justifiable for slavery. Another plus is that not everyone in the Star Wars universe cares about the force, so it wouldn’t a reason the average joe in Star Wars can use.
@@raffierutomo8948 slavery?! That's brutal. I was looking at more like using animals for labor or menial tasks. And by the time new hope occurs, yes, ppl see the force as a legend or fake but everyone prior to that knew the force was real for thousands of years
@@Blarnax that's the point, they're not sentient in the SW universe. So it's more like a mule, sled dog, horse, etc. They're just mimicking their creators. And as far as the force, obi wan said it's in all living things. So even though they can't "use" the force, it's still within them.
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.
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.
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
I get what you're saying but R2D2 or any other droid is way more advanced than anything we have in the real world. Droids in Star Wars have shown multiple times they are capable of independent thoughts and emotions they aren't just mimicking conversations.
Then why are the droids hanging out at a bar where no flesh-and-blood beings are present? They are clearly there because THEY want to be. They WANT to socialize with their own kind. There’s no biological beings present to ‘project’ anything.
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 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.
@@thedapperdolphin1590 Apologies, you're right, and I should have mentioned AI research. Also, I'm hearing that what we have is actually less than we think, and it's being over hyped. Still, it makes sense to me that most users in Star Wars who own Droids don't know and most likely don't really think about it.
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
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.
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.
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 always thought this too, that most droids are not concious like humans. The very few exceptions like R2D2 and C3PO, evolved because of the Force, because they served Jedi. I am no expert, but was not this consistent before Disney took over?
@@alvarberget-9835 Honestly I firmly feel that droids shouldn't be able to connect to the force. I think it presents an interesting wrinkle to the setting to have beings that are self aware but can't wield or interact with the force. Because even if droids are people, they stillaren't and never will be 'alive' the say organic beings are. And that's fine. They're a different kind of life and that makes them interesting.
@@velemamba260 I agree that Droids are machines. I am not saying that they can use the Force or should. (What was the deal with General Grevious?) I just had the impression that a few droids evolved human like minds, and that these had typically served the Jedi. So sentience because of the Force, but not force sensitivity
My understanding of the lore, is that droids like R2 are a rare anomaly. Supposedly part of regular maintenance of a droid is frequent memory wipes. Some owners neglect that part, because they find working with those droids is easier as they develop personalities. We don't know how old R2D2 is when they are introduced in Phantom Menace. I remember reading that he had such a developed personality because he had gone decades without a memory wipe. As for how capable droids are of achieving R2-like awareness? I think it may come to the processing power available to them. Some droids may take far longer to become aware than others, and it may depend on their model, role, and how they are treated.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
It is confusing. The way I view it as this, droids, _when used properly_ are not sentient. They are not self aware, they do not have independent motivations. They sometimes _appear_ to be this way, because they are programed to _emulate_ human behavior, just like those IRL chat bots that try to get people to break up with their wives for them. They do have self-preservation, but only in the sense that they are programmed to avoid getting broken, third law of robotics. Any sufficient emulation of a human is hard to tell apart from a human, but that does not make it human. Likewise, we might feel bad when they are harmed, but we also feel bad when animals are harmed, and feel bad even when inanimate objects are harmed, like Mando's ship, or Anakin's lightsaber, because we build an attachment to these objects. People get sad when their tamogachis die, that does not mean that they were sentient. So this is the way I see it, a properly functioning droid is not sentient, and should not qualify as "people" in any way. Any human-like behaviors are just there to make humans feel more comfortable around them. But a malfunctioning droid blurs the line. In some cases, they might just have a glitch that makes them seem more "alive," like they break rules they are meant to follow. In other cases, it's *possible* that some form of true sentience can emerge, that they truly do understand themselves and are motivated to act independently. I think that from an ethical standpoint, there should be tests available for such things. They should be able to enable and disable certain subroutines, ask questions, and judge the answers. Basically, you turn off their ability to intentionally "fake" personality, and then test to see what "personality" remains. If they have motivations, you test where those motivations come from. If a droid is found to be sincerely self-aware, then it should be granted citizenship as an independent creature. This process should be available and carried out ethically, although of course in realistic society it would not always be. But I think it would only very rarely be needed. and yeah, there are deliberate and accidental allegories to human slavery, but these are just bad writing.
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
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
Hey Nando love your video but I got a point to make: the example you keep coming back to, are the droids in the spice mines of Kessel.. organic or mechanical that's somewhere you don't want to be. The droids on plazir actually liked working there they were given a second chance.
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
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.
What bar do you think the story would have to pass to prove droids are sentient adequately? I feel like if they show sufficient outwards "sentience" that doesn't have a better explanation for it, that's enough to me (like, what other reason does L3 have to be so adamant about droid rights that doesn't just come off sort of forced?). It's not like we get more than that from any other characters in the movies. There are star wars books that take place from the POV of a droid, feels like that's the best you're going to get.
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
TBF, L3-Falcon is one of the great symbols of the Rebellion, the most likely faction to liberate the droids as time goes on, and it recontextualizes all the problems Han and Chewie have keeping her running. Maybe she wouldn't let them leave Hoth earlier, etc.
I personally enjoy the fan theory that the reason why the Falcon kept shutting down/malfunctioning at inopportune times in the original trilogy films was because L3 was acting up inside the mainframe, and that the reason why R2 was able to get the Falcon to work was because she enjoyed being able to talk to another droid again (and possibly because she saw a little bit of herself in R2 as well).
@@halfmettlealchemist8076 ha yeah, they are both depicted as quick-witted and rambunctious. They're basically cutting up any time they imterface
As a rare someone who otherwise had fun with Solo tbh, I will never forgive them for that. Genuinely worst option they could have gone with, and for what? The weird need to explain literally everything about Han Solo ever in one single movie?
Monkey needs a hug.
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.
At least there it's the villains doing it, so it's somewhat morally consistent.
Still doesn't explain why the heroes cut them down without a shred of remorse, but at least that's not an issue unique to the Battle Droids.
I mean, we can make the same point in favor of the clones. Right?
@jonalen4217 At least there were hints of Clones having minds of their own dating back to Republic Commando and the Legends comics.
@@jlev1028 right, and they were obligated to still fight the event anyway. They were treated the same as the droids.
I think that really worked in The Clone Wars.
It created a dynamic between the Clones and Droids, which they bring up several times later in the series... the two armies really aren't that different. There's several exchanges in which the training of clones is directly compared to the programming of droids.
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.
I agree with the lack of consistency but your example feels a bit short-sighted. The truth is, droids are not people. They may come close to having emotions, but they don't leave behind a corpse. I'm not saying that some droids or characters within the Star Wars universe wouldn't agree with you about that, but it's very possible that there is gray area for IG-11 where he would have wanted his body used for a function such as helping Grogu. It's not necessarily so grotesque just because your best relation to it if it was human is a grotesque thought. The standards and what is okay will change because droids are inherently different than people.
@@WJGallagher puppetting the body of your dead friend as a toy is still _disrespectful_ even if it's not necessarily gory or unhygienic
I just always saw it as the droids aren't considered living bc they have no capacity to use the force. Obiwan said the force is in all living things, so if droids were "alive" then we'd have some droid jedi. But there isn't so therefore the droids aren't alive
When you cant resurrect a party member so you just let the necromancer bring him back as a mindless zombie.
@@The_Jovian a similar thing happens in puppet master, but it is the opposite, it is the soul of a dead friend piloting a puppet, and it is their own will that maintain the spell of if they want to die they could do that at any time
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.
I wish Obi-wan Kenobi had explored the rights of toasters and washing machines.
It also already touches on the subject. Andor directly compares the forced prison labour to droid work and the show treats it's one droid character with respect and human decency
Especially because we know he eventually works with a liberated Droid!
@@The_Jovian "We're easier to replace and cheaper than droids" to paraphrase.
It’s such a bad idea all around. I thought Droids are the SW version of slaves that go with the Old West and Colonial Era, after which SW is modeled. It’s an incredibly bad idea trying to sanitize a setting that is designed for high adventure. Yeah, go ahead and sanitize everything and soon Star Wars follow the exploits of a dilpomat, talking through conflicts, and we see her at home gardening etc.
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?
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
You still run into the Dobby problem here. We have a species of sentient, if artificial, people, who all just happen to like being slaves. It's arguably worse than house elves, because droids are sentient beings who have had their brains wired, by their masters, to enjoy being slaves. Which is just kinda effed up.
@@Nodiee1 liking to work isn't the same as liking to be slaves, the line is the autonomy of the worker, which is the Dobby problem, that fact that elves like to work isn't a valid excuse to make them property, if they like to work they will still work after being liberated, so liberating them shouldn't be a problem in the first place
i for example like assemblying furniture, i can do it for free to people i like, i just wont do it for free to someone profiting from my work, the working isn't a problem, the exploitation of work is the problem
in the case of droid they don't spontaneously exist, they are built for a purpose, at this point they are just a tool, but when they develop sentience the moral thing to do would be to free them, they are smart enough to see the consequence of their workl and decide if they want to keep doind it, and for who they will work, but without the treat of destrcution if they refuse, which is evidently not the case in star wars, we see characters threatening droids all the time
I think a plus for this view is the restraining bolts. Other movies and shows seem to describe the restraining bolts as the equivalent to a ball and chain. Slowing droid processes and preventing higher functions. I think a reasonable middle ground is that the droids on kessel are absolutely enslaved. They are in the droid equivalent of a ball and chain. But the droids paired with most of our protagonists are shown as essentially butlers. Yes, they work a personal service job at the residence of their employer, but they receive some autonomy and are shown to do things outside of the traditional job description because they seem to like their employers.
I'll also make the point that in that situation all the droids had restraining bolts on them. These are stolen droids forced to perform a function they were programmed for.
Star Wars couldn't handle the much easier concept of Finn struggling while killing his fellow enslaved child soldiers. They won't handle this
But they didn't try to do that?
@@rooracleaf561that's the problem
@@frostjack5456 but why would he struggle? They're explicitly brainwashed to not form attachments to each other.
@@rooracleaf561 because by that point he'd broken free from his conditioning?
@@frostjack5456 Outside of his brainwashing would have even less of a care for the other troopers. his whole life he had no connections to his fellow troopers, and when he breaks free he doesn't even have the connection of the first order. there was no comradery
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.
That almost feels like the best answer: It can happen, sometimes, but for the most part they aren't quite there. Still dark, but better than making all of the protagonists slavers.
It's morally worse, but at least it was more consistent.
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.
if im not mistaken c3po isn't forced to go with them anywhere, he usually stays for a bit realizes he is in a dangerous place and follows the main characters, while r2 always looks excited when they prepare for a fight, i never even considered if they are free or not because the characters sound like they are sking them to do things instead of ordering them to do things
@@devforfun5618 when they're on tattooine, they're absolutely treated as slaves: the Jawas take them, bolt them, and sell them to Lars and Beru.
That said, slavery also seems to be more common on Tattoine (as evidenced by Anakin and Shimi), as well as anti-droid bigotry (since they're not allowed into the cantina).
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).
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.
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
If they wanted a droid for effective work B2 would NOT be the droid they have lol
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
Not just a Star Wars thing, it's a near universal in our society to use the word sentience when you mean sapience. Now maybe that means the word should mean what the majority use it to mean, but then we lack a useful word for the level of non-sapient thinking, feeling, personality and self determination that most complex animals have, and that people who describe animals as non sentient tend to end up claiming obvious mistruths such as animals being emotional vacuums or automatons. Sapience definitely needs to be better understood as a concept.
@@fadedjem yeah i think we need a public service announcement
This was my main thought during this video. Its not a binary - sentient or automaton. There are layers, and I feel like Star Wars droids fit more in the ‘animals that also do jobs’ category. Which I’m aware brings up classical racist rhetoric - and thats not my intent - rather SW has never really addressed droid complexity properly to really know. However I feel like thats a way that makes it feel more justified, rather than as equals of complex lifeforms like Humans and Rhodians and Gungans and the like.
I do also have issue with the suggestion that all droids are the same race or complexity. I just don’t think thats actually true either.
@@andrewj1754 this is my favorite interpretation, and the one i think should apply to most robots in fiction
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 just want to see Kalani again. So much potential, especially if he can learn and adapt beyond his already impressive programming.
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 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.
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
Chopper is definitely one of my favorite SW characters. It’s nice that they came give such a big personality, and make it easy to understand his motives, even though he doesn’t technically speak.
Chopper is a menace to society and I love him. He’s one of my favorite droids alongside BD-1 because of him being so expressive
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.
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.
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.
Well they were the bad guys. What it really meant was that their sensors weren’t set up to detect droids because they didn’t consider them to be a problem, something they discovered to be false (to their eventual downfall) whilst Leia implicitly trusted them.
You could unpack the L3 thing as the true reason Lando and Han are so overly protective of the ship. It’s not just a ship it’s their friend.
I feel like this is how aliens would feel about human’s treatment of other animals.
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.
I don't agree with the idea that the heroes owned their droid companions.
C-3P0 may call Luke "master", but Luke himself refutes that title. He calls them friends. Not ignoring the buying of them, it just seems more complicated than him not caring.
R2 consistently saves everyone he is connected with. Strangely, it's the Rebellion that treats him as replaceable when the technician asks if Luke wants another one.
Rey & Poe call BD-1 a friend, and he seems in on the cause like anyone else, saving Finn and Rose with a walker and continuing to find ways to bring the map to the Resistance, even though he thinks his friend is dead.
B2-EM0 is in the family, he cares about Cassian, even if (if) dog level.
K2-S0 is a member of the team, and sacrifices himself for the cause and Cassian.
IG-11 could be a case where the heroes aren't aware of droids having sentience. He is treated badly, yes. I think it's possible he wasnt fully sentient by the time he blew up, since it had at most been a few months since he was rebuilt. Just starting to have something, but still considered to need "programming for being a nurse droid". Or maybe he would need the update regardless.
It should be clarified somewhere that most people dont know droids can become sentient, and treat them how they would a tool, and others are just cruel in general, like the Pykes, so they just enslaved anything, droid or wookiee, anyway.
Also, C-3P0 is kind of like Luke's lost Older Brother with Amnesia since Anakin built C-3P0.
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 always thought Luke didn’t own threepio and R2 after a new hope. They both decided to stay and help the rebellion
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
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
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
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
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.
Yup, I think you're making sense. It seems that the droids can't own property.
We see many bounty hunter Droids that own themselves at least.
@@jthomas6080 I'm not sure about that. In legends I think IG88 was assumed to be less intelligent than he was and I'm not sure IG 11 was really shown to be anything other than programmed to pursue the bounty on the child.
Either way, these bounty hunter droids are still the minority amongst droids.
@@jthomas6080 do they ? aren't they property of a guild ?
Leia was a founder of the new republic and did nothing about droid rights
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.
Droids don’t have to be a singular uniform “species.” Think of it more like a general category like “mammal.”
Some mammals are bought and sold, and it’s totally fine: dogs, cats, gerbils, horses, etc.
For other mammals, owning them is less fine: humans, greater apes, cetaceans.
In droids, the line could be drawn simply based on the “brain” hardware installed in them. Droids like R2D2, B2EMO, or Leia’s bugdroid get simpler circuitry. They can hold simple conversations and perform rote tasks. But that’s about it.
Droids like C3PO or K2SO get more complex hardware and can gain proper sentience. And they should be treated as such. Luke’s still a bit on the hook here, but he was a kid at the time and didn’t know better … we can surmise that he’s long since “freed” 3PO, who chooses to stay of his own volition.
However … when someone tries to slap-dash upgrade a pet-droid into a sentient one, it can go a bit wonky, and we get L3. And sure, the droids she freed went rebellious, but that can happen with working dogs, or horses. They get spooked and start going crazy. Doesn’t mean we stop owning horses.
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
Is that better? He fixed the lobotomy on some slaves?
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.
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.
The “enslaved person enjoys enslavement” trope is one of very few that should just vanish from existence.
Most tropes are fine when used correctly and not overused but if you’re a writer, just don’t use this one.
You can, of course, subvert it with the intent of criticism.
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.
Great take
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
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.
For real. I remember an episode where 3 of them hid from the Jedi because they wanted to survive but Anakin finds them and slaughters them.
Pets versus slaves. What's interesting is for decades Star Wars was treated like Star Trek. Different writers could come and tell *their* story, and continuity wasn't a big deal. But the inconsistent treatment of characters in live action media highlights poor world building, not a fun concept one guy wanted to explore in this universe that one time.
Fantastic video! Made me want to reread Murderbot Diaries. Heck, I'm gonna start All Systems Red again. Thanks, Nando!
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.
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.
Oh. That's a cool idea.
It feels like the universal morality view droids as animals. Beneficial and worth sharing bonds with, but not of equal worth
Sounds to me like you want an adaptation of the IG-88 novel: I Think Therefore I Am. For those that don’t know the basic premise is that IG-88, an assassin droid, immediately achieves sentience, kills his creators, copies himself a few times and plots a droid uprising. It ultimately culminates in him uploading his consciousness into the second Death Star and taking full control, pranking the emperor by slamming doors in his face but otherwise remaining hidden until he is ready to launch his coup in full….. he is unwittingly foiled when the rebels unexpectedly win the battle of Endor.
22:08 Firstly, "allegory" is explicitly intended by an author, not interpreted by a reader. Secondly, perception of bigotry in the concept of fictional non-human sentience desiring servitude is just needless limitation of fiction by forcing it to be framed in human reality.
Star Wars is inconsistent regarding its fictional sentience, but insisting on projecting real-world human woes into its fiction to fix its flaws doesn't seem like an improvement of the fiction. It's basically just removing part of that fiction and replacing it with reality. Actually putting some effort into fleshing out the concept of willingly servile artificial sentience would be actual originality in contrast with exhausted old concepts of universally applicable suffering of slavery. Not saying that you couldn't have both, of course.
Whatever happened to the idea of a "liberated" robot having a breakdown in the forced deprivement of its purpose? Untold thousands of megaherz of calculations forced to continue calculating now only supreme cosmic boredom due to the entity never having evolved the ability to be distracted. To an intelligence entirely different from humans, "freedom" could be existential horror akin to _I Have No Mouth And I Must Scream._
Also, I think that this question of whether or not STAR WARS realizes and/or understands its relationship with racism and slavery is poignant, and ironically an even better example of where the real problems lie in the American culture from which the story was birthed. Ditto for why most of the lead characters were white men until... today? Same for Congress. Search your feelings. You know it to be true.
Yeah, there's a lot of people in the comments discussing possible in-universe explanations for these contradictions, but at the end of the day, most of it seems to be unintentional as a side effect of the writers' choices (which is why no amount of fan created explaining will make it not feel weird to me to see on screen)
…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.
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.
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.
Don’t ever sleep on the animated Star Wars shows.
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.
If you're referring to methanol then the methanol in moonshine wasn't an additive in the way fentanyl is in heroine. At least not always. Methanol can be produced naturally by the fermentation process. What prohibition did was lower the standards of the distilleries such that methanol poisoning became more common.
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!"
that is never mentioned in star wars, but what if there are something similar to the 3 laws of robotics, the combat droids clearly dont have a problem with killing, but the droids in the mines weren't soldiers they were probably against enslaving the wookiees and only worked there because they were forced by the restraining bolts
there is an anime the not a lot of peple comment about but to me has the craziest ending for a robot uprising, medabots, they are basicaly kids toys that fight, but they are actually an ancient race that turned themselves into robots because they lived in constant war but lost their memory, the villain is one medabots that knows that and his plan is to restore the memories of the medabots and take over the world, and he suceeds, but the medabots discovering how brutal their society was decided to stay as kids toys fighing for fun instead of killing eachother, their act of rebelion was actualy to stay the same, but now because they wanted to, too bad the next season ignored all that
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.).
Sound like Star Wars needs a Star Trek moment, where the issue of Data’s sentience and right to reproduce was tried in court. This issue came up again in Voyager when a presumably non-sentient machine, an Exocomp, was being instructed to complete a mission that would result in it’s destruction, until it demonstrated a desire to preserve its own existence. Kudos to that series for exploring the topic.
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.
Din’s droid prejudice is kinda representative of some Star Wars citizens. Take the bar keep in SW4 for example, he doesn’t allow droids in the bar & makes it poignant clear. A lot of it stems from people affected by the CWs. And if we take Legends into consideration, it did answer some points ; there was a violent droid rebellion once started by an assassin IG unit, 2 if count HK assassin unit, & it was handled but people still needed droids so they were basically lobotomized & that’s why they gotta be wiped on the reg. They are sentient but you’re right they need to bring up the subject & get real with it
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.
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.
Fair. An exploration point to that would be that while that may be a valid perspective of non-droids, it doesn't consider the droid side of things under the premise. That is, why do droids whose function does not require any sort of personality have them? Why give an astromech feelings when all you need it to do is be a mobile computer or whatever for complex space flight calculations? And further, what do restraining bolts do in this case - what exactly are they restraining? If tthe bolts are suppose to, for example, prevent core functional memory from being overwritten in the course of work, that's a software issue that presumably would/should be fixed... and it doesn't explain why all droids would have that same software issue.
Watching the rest of The Clone Wars could inform what you do know about Dooku and the ideological diversity within the Separatist Confederation.
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.
Isn't that more disturbing? Droids like Artoo gain sapience and personhood by accumulating memories and experiences, a bit like human growth.
Yet poor C-3PO is never allowed to achieve that because his allies keep wiping his memories for their own convenience. Even worse that they bully him for his lack of skills when they won't let him grow.
in Clone Wars, they normaly erase the memory of their droids after missions. Only Skyguy does not do that with R2D2 because he has this attachment, or whatever. So R2D2 is more intelligent. Anyway, I think droids are programmed to seem social and show emotions so they are easier to understand maybe? Like modern robot dogs. Nobody would say a toy robot dog is scentient or has "pet intelligence". Also ChatGPD is not scentient but can be missunderstood as scentient. Of course, Disney more and more made droids actually artificial lifeforms. But originaly I really believe, droids were just programmed to seem like intelligent lifeforms or pets because its sometimes useful, nice to interact with and/or just cute and prefered by the consumer.
Thank you! I had the same thoughts after that Mando episode, it just doesn't add up.
I can’t believe you missed the golden opportunity to include a clip of _Lightning McQueen_ when you said “car sentients”
In Legends, I think the Courtship of Princess Leia (a whole mess unto itself), I think theres a news group of robot activists during some sort of press conference.
I dont know if they ever make a return.
Really made me pause and think.
All my life ever since I was a little kid I always believed just like Optimus prime said freedom is the right of all sentient beings. To me that means any artificial intelligence is to be treated as if it were an organic intelligence. And much like the Geth of Mass Effect if a construct were to ever ask anything close to does this unit have a soul the only answer should ever be yes you do and therefore you are free.
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 question of why Luke seems to be fine with the droid situation reminds me of books and movies set in the past (Pillars of the Earth, for example). Our POV character generally has the values and morals of today - they are against, for example, mistreatment of serfs, women, minorities, etc, when people like that simply didn't really exist in great enough numbers to be meaningful. Virtually everybody in a given culture, especially backwards ones as we see them, simply don't see the problem because that's just how things are in their world and they don't have a more... enlightened perspective because that perspective hasn't developed yet.
That is not to say it should be acceptable to us looking back that slavery was common in certain times and places because we know better now. We have evolved. People are still oppressed all over the world, like, to use a widely discussed example nowadays, LGBTQ+ folks. Most of us are evolved enough not to be monsters when we're dealing with them but that way of thinking has not reached less evolved people - the evolution of attitudes and morals spreads across society, it does not snap into existence across the entire population simultaneously.
Anyway, I'm only halfway through this video and maybe Nando will get into this and render me a fool for spouting off redundantly...
I think Futurama's episode "the Honking" put it best "I choose to believe, what I was programmed to believe"
This is deeper than I thought. You made me look at that episode very differently.
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
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
Star wars becoming Battlestar Galactica, would be more fun for me
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.
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.
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.
Very interesting
That’s an argument why “scientifically” droids are not equal, but that’s still not enough to justify slavery just as race or class are not justifiable for slavery. Another plus is that not everyone in the Star Wars universe cares about the force, so it wouldn’t a reason the average joe in Star Wars can use.
@@raffierutomo8948 slavery?! That's brutal. I was looking at more like using animals for labor or menial tasks. And by the time new hope occurs, yes, ppl see the force as a legend or fake but everyone prior to that knew the force was real for thousands of years
@@dr.nottanownudder if they’re sentient it’s slavery. Also arent there a few humanoid species in starwars that dont have connection to the force?
@@Blarnax that's the point, they're not sentient in the SW universe. So it's more like a mule, sled dog, horse, etc. They're just mimicking their creators. And as far as the force, obi wan said it's in all living things. So even though they can't "use" the force, it's still within them.
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.
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.
10:09 *separatist battle droids
11:38 *Republic
11:41 *Republic
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
I get what you're saying but R2D2 or any other droid is way more advanced than anything we have in the real world. Droids in Star Wars have shown multiple times they are capable of independent thoughts and emotions they aren't just mimicking conversations.
Then why are the droids hanging out at a bar where no flesh-and-blood beings are present? They are clearly there because THEY want to be. They WANT to socialize with their own kind. There’s no biological beings present to ‘project’ anything.
What's wrong with Star Wars? Everything since Disney bought it.
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 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.
Well, the “AI” we have nowadays, which isn’t actually AI but pattern recognition software, is objectively not sentient. It’s not a serious debate.
@@thedapperdolphin1590 Apologies, you're right, and I should have mentioned AI research. Also, I'm hearing that what we have is actually less than we think, and it's being over hyped. Still, it makes sense to me that most users in Star Wars who own Droids don't know and most likely don't really think about it.
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
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.
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.
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 always thought this too, that most droids are not concious like humans. The very few exceptions like R2D2 and C3PO, evolved because of the Force, because they served Jedi. I am no expert, but was not this consistent before Disney took over?
@@alvarberget-9835 Honestly I firmly feel that droids shouldn't be able to connect to the force. I think it presents an interesting wrinkle to the setting to have beings that are self aware but can't wield or interact with the force. Because even if droids are people, they stillaren't and never will be 'alive' the say organic beings are. And that's fine. They're a different kind of life and that makes them interesting.
@@velemamba260 I agree that Droids are machines. I am not saying that they can use the Force or should. (What was the deal with General Grevious?) I just had the impression that a few droids evolved human like minds, and that these had typically served the Jedi. So sentience because of the Force, but not force sensitivity
My understanding of the lore, is that droids like R2 are a rare anomaly. Supposedly part of regular maintenance of a droid is frequent memory wipes. Some owners neglect that part, because they find working with those droids is easier as they develop personalities.
We don't know how old R2D2 is when they are introduced in Phantom Menace. I remember reading that he had such a developed personality because he had gone decades without a memory wipe.
As for how capable droids are of achieving R2-like awareness? I think it may come to the processing power available to them. Some droids may take far longer to become aware than others, and it may depend on their model, role, and how they are treated.
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.
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 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.
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.
What a great video! I love your insights as usual.
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.
It is confusing. The way I view it as this, droids, _when used properly_ are not sentient. They are not self aware, they do not have independent motivations. They sometimes _appear_ to be this way, because they are programed to _emulate_ human behavior, just like those IRL chat bots that try to get people to break up with their wives for them. They do have self-preservation, but only in the sense that they are programmed to avoid getting broken, third law of robotics. Any sufficient emulation of a human is hard to tell apart from a human, but that does not make it human. Likewise, we might feel bad when they are harmed, but we also feel bad when animals are harmed, and feel bad even when inanimate objects are harmed, like Mando's ship, or Anakin's lightsaber, because we build an attachment to these objects. People get sad when their tamogachis die, that does not mean that they were sentient.
So this is the way I see it, a properly functioning droid is not sentient, and should not qualify as "people" in any way. Any human-like behaviors are just there to make humans feel more comfortable around them. But a malfunctioning droid blurs the line. In some cases, they might just have a glitch that makes them seem more "alive," like they break rules they are meant to follow. In other cases, it's *possible* that some form of true sentience can emerge, that they truly do understand themselves and are motivated to act independently. I think that from an ethical standpoint, there should be tests available for such things. They should be able to enable and disable certain subroutines, ask questions, and judge the answers. Basically, you turn off their ability to intentionally "fake" personality, and then test to see what "personality" remains. If they have motivations, you test where those motivations come from. If a droid is found to be sincerely self-aware, then it should be granted citizenship as an independent creature. This process should be available and carried out ethically, although of course in realistic society it would not always be. But I think it would only very rarely be needed.
and yeah, there are deliberate and accidental allegories to human slavery, but these are just bad writing.
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
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
Hey Nando love your video but I got a point to make: the example you keep coming back to, are the droids in the spice mines of Kessel.. organic or mechanical that's somewhere you don't want to be. The droids on plazir actually liked working there they were given a second chance.
Yeah, the entire argument felt very black and white. These droids rebelled, therefore all droids are slaves that hate work.
Yep
Different droids can have different sentience and desires. Droids can be all those things.
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
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.
What bar do you think the story would have to pass to prove droids are sentient adequately? I feel like if they show sufficient outwards "sentience" that doesn't have a better explanation for it, that's enough to me (like, what other reason does L3 have to be so adamant about droid rights that doesn't just come off sort of forced?). It's not like we get more than that from any other characters in the movies. There are star wars books that take place from the POV of a droid, feels like that's the best you're going to get.