Reconciling Battle Droid Sentience?

[NecronLord]

I've been thinking, based on a comment in the RotS Revalations thread, that Super Battle Droids appear to be sentient. I'm thinking that it might be possible to reconcile Super Battle Droid and Battle Droid (not the security or command variants) sentience with the descriptions in numerous books of them as non-sentient by saying that the sentient part is the ship-board control computer and that the base program of the droids is not actually sentient...

I'm wondering if anyone else thinks this is likely.

[Shroom Man 777]

That's certainly a possibility. Another one would be that the droids are built un-sentient but eventually become sentient as they learn and stuff. Kinda like Skynet.

[weemadando]

Not sure about that - if it was the ships computer that was sentient, surely it would have them on task, rather than being more "individually oriented".

The droids spectating during the fights, having personal semi-emotional reaction to events and having to be ordered to undertake or return to certain tasks points to the sentience being droid level and commands to take advantage of the sentience being issued from a higher level.

Makes more sense than having the ship/command being the source of sentience which leads to the problems that had Gungans winning in TPM.

[18-Till-I-Die]

Well...i dont really think it needs to be reconciled.

Of course a battle droid would have some limited sentience, this would assist it in thinking out of the box and reacting in combat, abstract thinking and new ideas would be more quick in coming than if it were merely programed.

But it surely isnt fully sentient. Just enough to be equal to a clone, but i dont think Clonetroopers are completely self-aware either so...

[NecronLord]

Well. On the whole, I'd say the battle computer needs to be at least as smart as a human. At the very least. As for why it would project such sentience through its remote terminals, I was thinking that the computer would be in the habit of doing everything via them, so why not express annoyance/anger etc through them.,

[Beowulf]

I was under the impression that the SBDs, at least, had full droid brains, and didn't need any sort of seperate control computer.

[Molyneux]

I was under the impression that the SBDs, at least, had full droid brains, and didn't need any sort of seperate control computer.

As of Attack of the Clones, it's implied that at least some of the normal battledroids have more than one processing unit; it's also implied in EU sources (Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter, among other things) that the Separatist switched over to partially-autonomous battledroids after the fiasco on Naboo.

[Kuja]

I've been thinking, based on a comment in the RotS Revalations thread, that Super Battle Droids appear to be sentient. I'm thinking that it might be possible to reconcile Super Battle Droid and Battle Droid (not the security or command variants) sentience with the descriptions in numerous books of them as non-sentient by saying that the sentient part is the ship-board control computer and that the base program of the droids is not actually sentient...

I'm wondering if anyone else thinks this is likely.

I think it would be the opposite, actually. Individual droid brains becoming more elaborate and thoughtful as time went on, prompting them to act more 'human', but when the main computer took over and told them to get the fucking job done, they'd revert to their emotionless blank states as robot soldiers.

[GuppyShark]

Battle droids have always shown signs of personality - ever since two sabers ignited in a cloud of gas a few years ago.

The key differential seems to be the sentient droids used for security forces on ships, as opposed to the 'no-frills' models deployed to fight massed ground battles.

[Shroom Man 777]

These could be because the ones in massed ground battles end up all dead while the droids guarding the ships don't. So in enough time, they can learn enough to be sentient. Before the ground pounder droids can learn this, they die.

Or so I think.

[Cykeisme]

These could be because the ones in massed ground battles end up all dead while the droids guarding the ships don't. So in enough time, they can learn enough to be sentient. Before the ground pounder droids can learn this, they die.

Or so I think.

Sounds reasonable.

Recall that the purpose for frequent "memory wipes" for Star Wars droids is to prevent them from picking up personality quirks. This lends credence to the idea that droids slowly gain sentience, which in turn supports the idea that the infantry droids are more "mindless" than security droids is because they have much less opportunity to receive varied experiences.

Infantry battle droids don't get to spend much time activated.
Even after they're manufactured they're usually kept offline in a fetal position in a carrier or storage unit. When they enter combat they're usually quickly destroyed, and even if they survive, I suspect they're "packed up" again when the battle is over.

However, some sources indicate that infantry droids also have less hardware processing capability than security droids. The Star Wars RPG books, for example, list the price for infantry battle droids at less than half that of security droids due to their simpler processors.

[Ender]

I was under the impression that the SBDs, at least, had full droid brains, and didn't need any sort of seperate control computer.

As of Attack of the Clones, it's implied that at least some of the normal battledroids have more than one processing unit; it's also implied in EU sources (Star Wars: Jedi Starfighter, among other things) that the Separatist switched over to partially-autonomous battledroids after the fiasco on Naboo.

And stated on the P-38 page in the ROTS ICS (at least WRT droid starfighters)

[NecronLord]

Here's a question. Do TPM droidekas have independant brains? If not, you would expect to see the same kind of transceiver apparatus as used by the B1s...

[Darth Raptor]

Wasn't it established that the droid army in TPM stopped functioning not directly because the control ship was taken out, but as a pre-programmed failsafe device in the event that the Federation theater command was decapitated?