Latest / Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast / Androids in Star Wars

Transcript

Androids in Star Wars · Aggressive Negotiations: A Star Wars Podcast

• 0:00
  Speaker 1: Let's get ready to discuss Star Wars! I'm going to
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: regret this.
• 0:07
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the Nerd Party.
• 0:11
  Speaker 3: Hi, this is Nick Anastasio, lead editor and writer on
• 0:14
  Speaker 3: Maul Shadowlord, and you're listening to Aggressive Negotiation. Aggressive Negotiation.
• 0:23
  Speaker 1: Thank you, Nick.
• 0:23
  Speaker 2: Yes, welcome to Aggressive Negotiations, the Star Wars podcast that
• 0:27
  Speaker 2: prides itself on prying into the corners, nooks, crannies, and
• 0:31
  Speaker 2: all the other crevices of the Star Wars galaxy far,
• 0:34
  Speaker 2: far away. I am one of your hosts, Jedi Master
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: John Nelson. Joining me for this journey of discovery and
• 0:41
  Speaker 2: exploration and whatever other synonyms you might want to throw
• 0:45
  Speaker 2: out there in your own brain is my esteemed friend,
• 0:48
  Speaker 2: Jedi Master Matthew Rushing. Matt, it's another surprise topic tonight.
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: Based on the ramblings of my insane in the brain brain.
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: You ready for this?
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: I mean, is that the beginning to like a boxing match?
• 1:05
  Speaker 3: Are you ready for this? Anyway, no, I'm super excited.
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: Let's get ready to discuss Star Wars.
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: No, I'm ready. I love these.
• 1:18
  Speaker 3: It's always a lot of fun when the other person
• 1:21
  Speaker 3: doesn't know what's coming, but- Man, you know what should
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: be coming is reviews and star ratings for us over
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: on Apple Podcasts or Spotify. Because that helps people when
• 1:31
  Speaker 3: they're perusing podcasts to listen to, to find us. The
• 1:35
  Speaker 3: other way that you could help us grow is, and
• 1:37
  Speaker 3: one of the best ways to help podcasts grow so
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: it doesn't die, is personal recommendations. So if you listen
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: to this show and you run into a Star Wars fan,
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: you should tell them, hey, I know a great podcast.
• 1:48
  Speaker 3: It's called Aggressive Negotiations. You should listen to it. And
• 1:50
  Speaker 3: you can also do that through social media by following
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: us over at the Jedi Masters on X Twitter. We're
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: on Facebook at facebook.com slash the nerd party, the nerd party.com.
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: You can find us. We're on Instagram at the nerd
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: party and could also find the entire network at join
• 2:04
  Speaker 3: nerd parties on X Twitter. So there's so many places
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: where you could share us and help people see what's
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: happening and what's going on with the network and especially
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: just our show. So we'd really just appreciate your support
• 2:14
  Speaker 3: in that way. And so that's really what you can
• 2:17
  Speaker 3: do for us. But John, what is this surprise topic?
• 2:22
  Speaker 2: Well, I was thinking because Blade Runner 2099 is, it's
• 2:27
  Speaker 2: either out or it's just coming out or whatever. So,
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: but I start thinking again, we've talked about this in
• 2:33
  Speaker 2: passing because we've talked about Shadows of the Empire, obviously,
• 2:36
  Speaker 2: and Gurry is a humanoid robot that happens in that,
• 2:39
  Speaker 2: an android. And Androids are something we don't really encounter
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: in Star Wars. Like we've talked about this. Lucas comes from...
• 2:47
  Speaker 2: He's older than we are. He comes from a mechanical
• 2:50
  Speaker 2: engineering world. Computer engineering is backed into from.
• 2:54
  Speaker 1: That, grows out of it sort of thing.
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: So there's very much still that mechanical engineering mentality reflected
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: in Lucas's world. But I wanted to put out to you...
• 3:05
  Speaker 2: I know that Shadows of the Empire is now no
• 3:08
  Speaker 2: longer canon, but... As I sit here and I think
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: about these things, replicants are all the rage. Androids are
• 3:15
  Speaker 2: all the rage. We're talking about robotics now with AI
• 3:18
  Speaker 2: and blah, blah, blah, all the marketing stuff so that
• 3:20
  Speaker 2: the IPOs can go off crazy and everything like that.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: So the simple question I have is this, why have
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: we not seen androids, replicant style androids in Star Wars?
• 3:34
  Speaker 2: And do you think that there's a backstory there to tell?
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: In the galaxy far, far away.
• 3:38
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I would say that the most interesting
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: part of that is that the closest that we kind
• 3:44
  Speaker 3: of come is General Grievous, right? Because it is a
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: person who their consciousness and their being has been transplanted
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: into a artificial body. And so– That's that's really almost
• 4:05
  Speaker 3: like the closest we come to that. And it's almost
• 4:08
  Speaker 3: like we kind of like skip over that in Star
• 4:10
  Speaker 3: Wars because, you know, we do clones.
• 4:12
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: And so, you know, what would be the point of
• 4:16
  Speaker 3: kind of like Blade Runner replicants or any of those
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: type of things when you've got droids and you have
• 4:23
  Speaker 3: the ability to clone oneself if you wanted to or
• 4:27
  Speaker 3: to create clones? And.
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: You know, it.
• 4:31
  Speaker 3: Seems as though to create something that is, you know, semi-human,
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: maybe human, kind of like human. We're not sure if
• 4:45
  Speaker 3: they're human. It's almost tricks you if it's like human
• 4:50
  Speaker 3: or whatever. That just seems like a place that it's
• 4:54
  Speaker 3: It almost like, I don't know, it doesn't seem like
• 4:57
  Speaker 3: that idea just fits in Star Wars in general, except for, again,
• 5:03
  Speaker 3: like Grievous, I feel like, is the closest character that
• 5:06
  Speaker 3: we come to playing with that idea.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: Well, I don't, you know, I mean, Grievous is, you know,
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: he's the person becoming machine. He's a foreshadowing of Vader,
• 5:20
  Speaker 2: how you can stay alive even though you should be dead.
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: Yeah, he's a.
• 5:24
  Speaker 2: Grievous is a sack of organs and a brain with eyes.
• 5:29
  Speaker 2: Kind of creepy, sort of terrible villain sort of thing.
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: Still one of my favorites. But I like with invoking
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: the clones, I think that gets at something that Lucas
• 5:43
  Speaker 2: was already exploring with what the replicant angle goes with,
• 5:48
  Speaker 2: which is once.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: You can clone... you have.
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: And I know some people might bristle at this word,
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: but you have slaves already. And the whole point of
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: making androids or making LLM agents or anything like that,
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: and I know this is going to sound very, you know, brusque,
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: but is to make slaves. Something intelligent enough to do
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: what you tell it to do, but never question you,
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: never rebel, which is, you know, I mean, obviously, Clone Wars,
• 6:19
  Speaker 2: we explore some different stuff with Rex and everything like that.
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: But that's the intent. Clones can think creatively, but the
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: intent of creating a clone army is not that they
• 6:29
  Speaker 2: will go on to become fully realized individuals. They do anyway,
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: as we find out in the Clone Wars, but they
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: want to make meat robots. That's the whole idea, is
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: they already have a droid army over here. We want
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: to make a meat army over here. but they're both
• 6:47
  Speaker 2: just doing what we tell them to do. And to
• 6:50
  Speaker 2: your point, once you cross the quick cloning barrier, would
• 6:55
  Speaker 2: you say you've removed the need to create the humanoid robot?
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: Because like, in a sense you have, and you don't
• 7:03
  Speaker 2: need to invest all of that technology. You can just
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: grow the thing like a, you know, like lab grown
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: meat or something.
• 7:10
  Speaker 3: Yeah. I mean, the other thing I was thinking about
• 7:12
  Speaker 3: this is, you know, I just actually watched Blade Runner.
• 7:16
  Speaker 3: the original, because it was back in theaters. It was
• 7:20
  Speaker 3: great to see it in the theater for the first time. And,
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: you know, I thought what was most interesting about that
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: in many ways is that, you know, the replicants are
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: created to serve humanity and specifically in possible environments where,
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: you know, it would be dangerous for humans, right? The
• 7:37
  Speaker 3: jobs are more dangerous, you know, and I kind of
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: was thinking about that idea. And, you know, look, like,
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: You even think about Mustafar, right, that there is a
• 7:45
  Speaker 3: species that is evolved to live on Mustafar. And so
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: you don't need to create a replicant to work there.
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: You already have beings who live there. And so if
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: you want to do trade with them, you know, and
• 7:56
  Speaker 3: so in that sense, like I think that one of
• 7:58
  Speaker 3: the things about the. galaxy like star wars is that
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: you have so many different aliens who can do so
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: many different things the need for this type of being
• 8:10
  Speaker 3: really isn't necessarily there in that way um you know
• 8:14
  Speaker 3: you kind of think about that you know even in
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: in star trek right where data is your most famous
• 8:21
  Speaker 3: android like even there in that sense um unless you're
• 8:26
  Speaker 3: talking you know star trek picard the series where season
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: one deals with the idea of human beings and replicant
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: beings like that, you know, like a plethora of androids.
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: You don't really see that as much even there, right? One,
• 8:42
  Speaker 3: because nobody can recreate the technology that was there. And two,
• 8:47
  Speaker 3: in the end, those societies don't really utilize them as
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: like you were talking about. The reason you would kind
• 8:53
  Speaker 3: of create these type of beings is to do jobs
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: that humans need to do, but they don't want to
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: do most likely in really dangerous situations. And so that's
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: the other interesting aspect about this. I feel like in
• 9:04
  Speaker 3: Star Wars, where when you've got so many different types
• 9:08
  Speaker 3: of beings in the galaxy, there's almost always somebody who's willing.
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: To do that.
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: I mean, like, you know, right? Like, they do all
• 9:17
  Speaker 3: of these types of jobs that, you know, other beings
• 9:20
  Speaker 3: wouldn't want to do. But one, they're good at. And two,
• 9:24
  Speaker 3: they their whole culture is kind of like baser at that.
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: Or You know, Jawas with being scavengers and like you
• 9:30
  Speaker 3: just kind of think about that the Star Wars galaxy
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: has already created all of these different races and beings
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: from different worlds that kind of fit within these little
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: molds where you might, if you were just a more
• 9:44
  Speaker 3: humanoid society, want to create something to do that type
• 9:50
  Speaker 3: of work because you wouldn't want to or couldn't do
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: it just because of who you are.
• 9:55
  Speaker 2: So, I mean, you're saying that Star Wars doesn't have
• 9:59
  Speaker 2: the problem of wanting androids specifically because we're in a
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: thousand thousand worlds. There's a million worlds and there's always
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: going to be somebody who can work in the environment,
• 10:11
  Speaker 2: who can do that. So basically the problem doesn't exist
• 10:15
  Speaker 2: that an android would solve for. where you would have
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: situations where humans or some other being wasn't suited to
• 10:27
  Speaker 2: do that. I like that thought because again, it gets
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: to the fact that they want, when people want to
• 10:33
  Speaker 2: make robots, all they're thinking about is I want something
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: intelligent enough to do what I don't want to do
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: that can never.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Tell me no. It's a very base impulse. It's not awesome.
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: And I like your idea as well because it leans
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: into the idea that at the core, humans are uncomfortable
• 10:51
  Speaker 2: with that idea. And so they would rather, I would
• 10:54
  Speaker 2: rather go to Mustafar and say, oh, people live on
• 10:58
  Speaker 2: Mustafar that can do the job of harvesting lava or
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: whatever it is that they're harvesting. And why wouldn't I
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: just pay them? Why wouldn't I just work with them
• 11:07
  Speaker 2: to do it? Hey, you live in here anyway.
• 11:09
  Speaker 1: Sure.
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: I'm not going to create the droid or whatever to
• 11:13
  Speaker 2: go in and take care of it. I like that
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: thought because it actually, if anything, ennobles the Star Wars
• 11:19
  Speaker 2: galaxy a little bit and says that people want to
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: deal with others. And I mean, if anything, it's a
• 11:28
  Speaker 2: better ideal than Star Trek even.
• 11:30
  Speaker 3: Right.
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: Where it's like, oh, hey, I'll deal with you on
• 11:31
  Speaker 1: your terms.
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: And I think the other part about this is, and
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: this is the thing where for the most part, the only,
• 11:37
  Speaker 3: you know, we've really only seen one droid who's, you know,
• 11:41
  Speaker 3: claimed sentience and that's L3, right? And every other droid
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: we've seen It has the feeling of that while at
• 11:50
  Speaker 3: the same time just being a tool, right? And one
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: of the interesting parts of Star Wars is that even
• 11:58
  Speaker 3: how you use your tools reflects on who you are
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: as a person, right?
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: Right. Exactly.
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: Which we saw with Anakin and the way that he
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: treated R2 and the way that– and the way Obi-Wan
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: kind of sees them again more as tools. He's not
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: rude to them, but he's not going out of his
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: way to be necessarily kind to them in that sense.
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: He doesn't anthropomorphize droids the way that some like someone
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: like Anakin does. And yeah, Luke does the same way really. Um,
• 12:30
  Speaker 3: in the end you, you see him, you know, having
• 12:34
  Speaker 3: kind of more of a relationship with, with them in
• 12:36
  Speaker 3: that sense and seeing them almost as friends, uh, I mean,
• 12:41
  Speaker 3: I guess, you know, that makes sense when you're spending
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: all that time in Dagobah and who else you got
• 12:44
  Speaker 3: to talk to, you know, when Yoda's not around. It's R2. So,
• 12:49
  Speaker 3: you know, I hope you know binary.
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: It would look funny if he started talking to one
• 12:55
  Speaker 1: of the lizards.
• 12:56
  Speaker 3: This is, yeah. Which maybe he did.
• 12:58
  Speaker 1: You know, who knows?
• 12:58
  Speaker 3: Maybe he had bad shrooms one day and just like
• 13:01
  Speaker 3: started talking to a lizard and had a great conversation.
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: I mean, so.
• 13:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, listen, that's a whole other topic as to how
• 13:06
  Speaker 2: many hallucinogenic plants were on Dagobah.
• 13:09
  Speaker 1: Because maybe, like, everybody's like, oh, poor Yoda lived there.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: I'm like, was Yoda just, like, tripping balls the whole
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: time that he was there until Luke showed up? Like,
• 13:16
  Speaker 2: he wasn't sure that Luke was actually there when he
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: first showed up. Where he's like, whoa, like, maybe that's
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: what drove Yoda nuts.
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: No, no, see. And then it was like, oh, he's back.
• 13:24
  Speaker 3: No, I don't think he needed that because, you know,
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: I think Qui-Gon was just a frequent guest just chilling.
• 13:29
  Speaker 3: You know, I think they just had lots of long
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: conversations together and, you know, that was really fun.
• 13:36
  Speaker 2: No, but see— But see, we got a whole sitcom
• 13:39
  Speaker 2: situation here where Qui-Gon is like, oh no, I've been
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: here for a very long time.
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: That's fine to eat. Eat that one.
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: And he's just pranking the hell out of Yoda.
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: There you go.
• 13:49
  Speaker 3: There you go.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: And Yoda keeps falling for it for the first five years.
• 13:54
  Speaker 2: And eventually he's.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Like, fall for that. I will not. Exactly. I think
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: it's great.
• 13:59
  Speaker 3: But no, I mean, I think, you know, that.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: What is interesting is that, you know, there are a
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: lot of, you know, sci-fi universes that kind of play
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: by similar rules. But I think that this is one
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: of the other things that makes this different, right? And
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: it really does, you know, Star Wars itself, you know,
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: people kind of will tend to think of it as like, oh,
• 14:21
  Speaker 3: it's kind of a sci-fi franchise, but really it is
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: space fantasy. And so therefore the things that it's dealing
• 14:28
  Speaker 3: with and the questions that it's dealing with It has
• 14:31
  Speaker 3: so much more to do with the type of questions
• 14:33
  Speaker 3: that a fantasy series would ask you more so than
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: a sci-fi series. And so therefore the questions of like
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: what does it mean to be human and trying to
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: experience that through the characters we're writing, it's asking the
• 14:46
  Speaker 3: more mythic questions, right? It's asking more about values and
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: beliefs more than it is like this idea of exploring
• 14:55
  Speaker 3: what it means to necessarily be quote-unquote humans. And I
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: think that's the reason that we don't have these type
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: of questions, because, you know, when you have a replicant
• 15:05
  Speaker 3: type character, what they tend to be is for us
• 15:09
  Speaker 3: some sort of mirror. And we don't that's not the
• 15:12
  Speaker 3: type of of storytelling or structure or thematic element, really,
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: that George Lucas is going for in his stories in
• 15:21
  Speaker 3: the first place.
• 15:23
  Speaker 2: Well, what's also interesting is, you know, you touch on
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: the whole mimicking human behavior thing, which is what we're
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: going through with the LLM slash AI sort of stuff
• 15:34
  Speaker 2: right now, as we're recording this, I'm sure that in
• 15:36
  Speaker 2: 20 years, so it was like, Oh, those were fools.
• 15:38
  Speaker 1: I didn't know what they were talking about. Whatever. Okay.
• 15:40
  Speaker 1: I'll be dead by then probably.
• 15:41
  Speaker 2: But anyway, um, uh, like I'm looking at it through a, um,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: another lens as well, because what you're, you're talking about
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: touches on Brian Daly when he did the star Wars
• 15:53
  Speaker 2: radio dramas, which we should talk about at some point
• 15:56
  Speaker 2: here on the show. Um, Bernard Barron's as Obi-Wan talks
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: with Luke at one point and like 3PO says something
• 16:05
  Speaker 2: like walks out of the room with R2. And I
• 16:08
  Speaker 2: don't remember the exact circumstance, but he says words to
• 16:10
  Speaker 2: the effect of humans don't always think of the after
• 16:16
  Speaker 2: effect of instilling their machines with personality. Like he, like
• 16:22
  Speaker 2: to speak to your point, Obi-Wan's never rude to a droid.
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: But Obi-Wan also doesn't befriend a droid on the level
• 16:28
  Speaker 2: that Anakin and Luke do. There's something different going on
• 16:33
  Speaker 2: that happens there. And Brian Daly himself picked up on
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: that all the way back when he wrote the Star
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: Wars radio drama. And I think, though, that it's interesting
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: because you also mentioned L3.
• 16:50
  Speaker 1: So my question.
• 16:53
  Speaker 2: To you would be, is there room for Star Wars
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: to explore what they did with the, I think it
• 17:03
  Speaker 2: was Tales of the Bounty Hunters, where, now, this is
• 17:08
  Speaker 2: the thing.
• 17:08
  Speaker 1: So I'm going to call him Zuckus, although.
• 17:11
  Speaker 2: I know they later changed his name to 4LOM, even
• 17:14
  Speaker 2: though when I was growing up, 4LOM was the insect-looking dude,
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: and Zuckus was the droid, and then they flipped it.
• 17:22
  Speaker 2: for whatever reason, I know the reasons, blah, blah, blah.
• 17:26
  Speaker 2: But in that, the droid of that duo achieved a
• 17:32
  Speaker 2: sort of sentience and a connection to the Force. Now,
• 17:35
  Speaker 2: going back to a Dragon Con that you and I attended,
• 17:38
  Speaker 2: where I sat on a panel about droid sentience, inspired
• 17:42
  Speaker 2: by the L3 stuff and everything like that. Do you
• 17:45
  Speaker 2: think that there is room with the way the conversation
• 17:49
  Speaker 2: is going now for Star Wars to explore that idea
• 17:53
  Speaker 2: of a droid achieving some sort of force connection? Would
• 17:56
  Speaker 2: that even be possible in the Star Wars galaxy?
• 18:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think in the end, you know, um, the
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: force as understood by George Lucas and, you know, now
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: with the Dave Filoni in charge, I don't see this
• 18:10
  Speaker 3: ever happening. And because there, I agree just for the record,
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: because there is something about the idea of, um, The
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: embodied existence of a flesh and blood being and its
• 18:27
  Speaker 3: connection to the force and that yet– that there is–
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: and I think this is something that's never really truly
• 18:35
  Speaker 3: been explored. But as– that the midichlorians are the things
• 18:39
  Speaker 3: that live within the cells of beings that exist in
• 18:45
  Speaker 3: what we would consider flesh and blood, right? And not
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: in the– animate material that makes up a droid in
• 18:54
  Speaker 3: that sense you know the forces and everything in the
• 18:58
  Speaker 3: sense that in the rocks and the trees and all
• 19:00
  Speaker 3: that kind of stuff but I think that it seems
• 19:06
  Speaker 3: as though the midichlorians themselves seem to reside and this
• 19:12
  Speaker 3: is just my guess only in quote-unquote flesh and blood beings.
• 19:20
  Speaker 2: Well, I mean, if they're symbiotic, if they're symbiotes, what
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: could they live in in metal or rock? That would
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: change the entire... If you're able to tell midichlorians through
• 19:33
  Speaker 2: a blood test, that is exactly right. This is why
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: I said early on, while you were talking, I was like, yeah,
• 19:39
  Speaker 2: for the record, I agree. Because it's an energy field
• 19:43
  Speaker 2: created by all living things. And I think that that's
• 19:48
  Speaker 2: the thing that sometimes gets... missed is they're not living.
• 19:53
  Speaker 2: Even if it becomes intellectually indistinguishable between myself and a
• 20:00
  Speaker 2: robot in Star Wars, it's not alive.
• 20:04
  Speaker 1: It can't be alive.
• 20:06
  Speaker 2: Something that's alive has to eat and grow and change.
• 20:10
  Speaker 2: Like it's all a thing where, um, if you remember
• 20:13
  Speaker 2: the Ron Howard movie backdraft, they talk about fire as
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: a living thing because it moves, it grows, it consumes
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: and it changes. And it's like that, that's some sort
• 20:24
  Speaker 2: of definition of life. Um, and I think that, uh, you.
• 20:29
  Speaker 1: Know, a, a droid.
• 20:32
  Speaker 2: Is also limited because it's, let me just to sort
• 20:37
  Speaker 2: of like close it out because I'm sort of, this
• 20:40
  Speaker 2: is occurring to me as we talk about this. Right now,
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: you can't go a couple of months with some new
• 20:46
  Speaker 2: model of LLM being released.
• 20:50
  Speaker 1: It can do this now. It can do that now.
• 20:53
  Speaker 1: How would you go.
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: About updating a robot to become more than it is now? Like,
• 21:03
  Speaker 2: is there a Situation like we know that Threepio is
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: built by Anakin and he's essentially the same parts.
• 21:11
  Speaker 1: It's not a ship of Theseus thing.
• 21:12
  Speaker 2: He's essentially the same parts at his core, at least
• 21:16
  Speaker 2: by the time he gets to Luke decades later. How
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: do you craft a growing and learning situation for that
• 21:24
  Speaker 2: mechanical being? Like, let's say we even say that it's
• 21:28
  Speaker 2: a replicant thing. Like it has to learn and grow,
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: doesn't it? And is there a cap?
• 21:34
  Speaker 1: Therefore, on what R2 and 3PO and other droids are
• 21:38
  Speaker 1: even capable of.
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: I think there is. Now, I think that the most
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: interesting aspect of this is that we also get the
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: understanding in Star Wars that most droids are wiped frequently.
• 21:55
  Speaker 3: And so the droids that we have seen that have
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: more personality are those droids who are not, right? And
• 22:00
  Speaker 3: it does create this sense of a personality. and it
• 22:06
  Speaker 3: feels more real and organic in that sense, right? And
• 22:09
  Speaker 3: a part of that also has to do with the
• 22:11
  Speaker 3: way in which their owner treats them too, right? And
• 22:15
  Speaker 3: it's almost as if they can mimic the way in
• 22:19
  Speaker 3: which their owner treats them, and that creates that symbiotic relationship.
• 22:23
  Speaker 3: But I think what you're asking is 100% correct. There
• 22:27
  Speaker 3: is always going to be a limit to how far
• 22:33
  Speaker 3: a binary being can go because they can only think binarily.
• 22:38
  Speaker 3: And therefore, one of the hallmarks of being human, just
• 22:43
  Speaker 3: to speak in that way, is the idea to think
• 22:45
  Speaker 3: outside the box, to think about all of these other things,
• 22:48
  Speaker 3: to imagine, to all of that. And so even when
• 22:52
  Speaker 3: I think of L3, to me, it seems like her
• 22:56
  Speaker 3: thought process of sentience comes from her Possibly having read
• 23:02
  Speaker 3: works by beings and have and and then imposing that
• 23:06
  Speaker 3: thought process on her and her own existence in the
• 23:10
  Speaker 3: existence of like, you know, other droids. Right. And so, yeah,
• 23:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, look, I think in the end, to answer
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: your question, yes, there is an absolute limit to what
• 23:23
  Speaker 3: a binary code can do.
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: Although I will say that the one wrinkle.
• 23:30
  Speaker 2: With what we agree on there is that Lucas himself
• 23:34
  Speaker 2: said that if you track the journey of the robots
• 23:40
  Speaker 2: of R2 and 3PO, their journey is toward a more
• 23:45
  Speaker 2: human state than Anakin, who has a reverse journey toward
• 23:50
  Speaker 2: becoming Darth Vader. But then what I would layer on
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: top of that is that, How different are 3PO and
• 23:59
  Speaker 2: R2 between when we see them in the original trilogy
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: and the prequel trilogy? Because we even know for a
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: fact that 3PO' s mind gets wiped after episode three. But
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: when we encounter him, he's still essentially 3PO. So that
• 24:17
  Speaker 2: speaks to the idea of a limit.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: He is who he is.
• 24:23
  Speaker 2: What nuance do we see for how he changes through time?
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: That might even be an interesting one to delve into
• 24:31
  Speaker 2: in a 3PO focused episode.
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: And I mean, the biggest one is that, that really
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: changes and grows is R2, right? You know, he has
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: the most personality and in some ways as a droid,
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: it feels the one that is most human. I mean,
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: he's the one that's worried for himself. He's the one
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: that's worried for, you know, his master that he would
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: consider a friend, you know? Um, so yeah, I mean,
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: and part of that again is because his mind is
• 25:00
  Speaker 3: not wiped. Right.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: So, well, I would still, I would still say that
• 25:04
  Speaker 2: he's not as human as chopper who is capable of murder.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: And that to me is definitely a very, very clear
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: indication of humanity when you're capable of great evil.
• 25:13
  Speaker 1: This is true.
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: And, uh, you know, I mean, let's be honest, chopper
• 25:17
  Speaker 2: living forever close to my heart. But you know what
• 25:20
  Speaker 2: else lives close to my heart, Matt, is all of
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: the ways that I can reach you online. That transition
• 25:26
  Speaker 2: made absolutely no sense whatsoever.
• 25:28
  Speaker 1: But here we are. So where can people find you
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: out there in the wild?
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: Well, my friends, it's not a binary decision. You can
• 25:33
  Speaker 3: find me all over social media under the name MattRushing02.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: Of course, here on the network, you'll find me on
• 25:37
  Speaker 3: a show called Owl Post, as I talked about every
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: single chapter of the Harry Potter series one chapter at
• 25:41
  Speaker 3: a time over on the TFM network. We've got a
• 25:44
  Speaker 3: lot of shows in the 602 Club talking about all
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: the franchises that we love. And then a lot of
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: great Star Trek talk with my good friend Chris Jones
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: over there. So I hope you'll enjoy all of those shows.
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: But John, you know, when people aren't trying to figure
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: out what you're saying because you sound just a little
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: bit too much like Chopper, where can people find you?
• 26:02
  Speaker 2: Well, gosh, I sound like a drunk Chopper, honestly. And
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: you can find me out there on the wilds of
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: the internet. It's Kessel Junkie, K-E-S-S-E-L-J-U-N-K-I-E. And every so often
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: I write on KesselJunkie.com. And then you can find me
• 26:14
  Speaker 2: here on the network, co-hosting a show with two lovely gentlemen,
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: Darren Moser and Tristan Riddell called House Lights, where we
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: look at the work of directors. And every so often,
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: We cover a director that I have to whine months
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: and months to cover. As we record this, we're covering
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: the works of John Carpenter, who's one of the greatest
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: maestro directors of my lifetime. And I will not be
• 26:37
  Speaker 2: taking any questions after that. But Matt, I have to
• 26:40
  Speaker 2: go and I have to watch some more movies because
• 26:43
  Speaker 2: it's spooky season as we record this by Mr.
• 26:46
  Speaker 1: John Carpenter. So I think it's time to close these negotiations. John, negotiations. Negotiations.
• 27:04
  Speaker 3: Join the revolution.
• 27:05
  Speaker 2: Join the nerd party.