Are Droids essentially slaves?

[superduperman]

They have sentience. They have self preservation instincts. Whenever they're in trouble, C3PO's biggest fear is that he's going to "die". Despite the fact that he is the least likely in danger of all the humans around him. If they got captured, the worst that might happen to him is he would have his memory wiped and be reprogrammed to serve the empire. When they crash land on Tatooine, the first thing that happens is they get captured and sold to Luke's family. Who then install "restraining bolts" on them to keep them from wandering off. When he gets back from dinner, the first thing Luke does is turn on the restraining bolt that wakes up C3PO. Suggesting it is like a little electric shock. Like a shock collar. This suggests semi-inhumane treatment. If droids are basically appliances for human needs, why give them personalities and sentience? R2D2 almost seems like he can feel pain. Especially when the jawa shoots him. And the droids in Jabba's palace DO feel pain. Which also seems like an odd thing to program a droid to feel. What purpose does it serve unless it is to keep them in line through threat of pain? Would something like a "restraining bolt" even be necessary if they were just appliances? Most people don't need to worry about their refrigerator wandering off. And then there is the scene in Phantom Menace where droids are being picked off left and right to fix the queen's ship and when the repairs are done, she personally thanks R2D2. So the humans at least acknowledge that the droids are sentient beings in comparison to something like a toaster. Does this mean that droids exist in some sort of odd limbo between alive and not alive? They have consciousness and sentience but they have no rights as living beings. What do you think?

[Starter Set]

I have wondered once or twice why in hell anyone would build machines with complex personalities like that and capable of such a wide variety of emotions i must admit.

I mean, they can feel fear, they can be angry, they can be happy...what's the bloody point? Do you really need a droid who can be frightened? Is that helpful to have your droid being crossed at you?

I can see the point of a machine mimicking human emotions like in the case of protocol droid maybe, or a nurse, or whatever of the sort. But genuine emotions? That's not even bad design, that's plain cruelty.

And no one would wonder about them being slaves if they weren't so human-like lol.

[Cel]

I asked myself this same question years ago, and the answer was "yes, but..."

Even though some droids have personalities and are considered and treated like friends or even family, I think this is more rare than common. The majority of droids may actually have no personality at all and are essentially soulless machines that do the bidding of their owners without question. But if a droid is allowed to operate for a quite awhile without having its memory flushed periodically, it will develop those very humanlike traits after awhile and will become more than just a machine. At that point, either they're allowed to continue as actual beings with a will of their own or reduced back to being mere machines after a memory wipe.

[SuperiorIronman]

It's a variety of cases when it comes to droids.
We know that droids can be functionally specific in that they will never leave a certain set of parameters. Some droids are built with the express purpose of being used as a tool. They likely fall under the tool category simply because they are not capable of being independent. Some medical droids for example are only ever tasked with performing medical procedures as required, so it has no reason to have independent thought. It's function is to do something and thus has no reason to be anything else, it's simply incapable because it isn't designed to do anything else.

However some droids are required to be able to process information and utilize it. They need a degree of sentience and while they start with certain parameters, they develop a personality over time due to what they learn. This approaches slavery as while they are built to perform a function, droids can develop independence which leads to frequent mindwipes. It's the equivalent to a blender gaining sentience. As such, droids who have been active long enough tend to get treated like citizens since they might as well be. They have thoughts and feelings and even possess jobs (dock workers, pilots, bounty hunters, etc) and so droids who have gained sentience or at the very least independent thought could be considered slaves when forced into tasks. A protocol droid who performs it's basic functions is not a slave, it's a tool because that's what it is built to do. However one who has gained independence from it's programming over time due to information gained could. As it has gained the ability to think, it has the ability to be independent of its task.

The reasoning I'd imagine they would have the ability to be separate from core functionality is likely to perform better as it's unlikely a programmer can foresee every scenario. A battledroid may only know basic tactics but long enough in the field it may develop its own and way of going about it. Likewise a protocol droid may need to adapt to changing political climates or communities. Physicians would need it to treat a being as not all creatures are the same even among the species.
Beyond this they can likely feel pain as a means of damage response. If a droid is damaged and can feel "pain" from its receptors, it knows it needs to be repaired similarly to any other animal.

[Zero Hunter]

I kinda think it is just to make them more relatable. If your spending a lot of time with one it would get pretty annoying if they were just totally cold and logical.

[Starter Set]

This thread reminded me of that line from C3PO : "we were made to suffer, it's our lot in life"

That's exactly what i meant by poor design cause from an utility stand point that's not a way of thinking a machine should be able to have. A hammer who can be depressed is not one i would want to buy.

[Carabas]

Droid personalities and emotions seem to be more a bug than a feature, which can be prevented by simply performing standard maintenance.

[Starter Set]

It does seem that regular memory wipes is basic droid maintenance true enough and that a complex personalty is often the by-product of the absence of it. (Obi-Wan talks about it to Anakin in the clone wars cartoon i remember once or twice)

Though, R2 has gone through several and still keeps pretty much the same personally so, yeah, fiction eh?

[Cel]

It does seem that regular memory wipes is basic droid maintenance true enough and that a complex personalty is often the by-product of the absence of it. (Obi-Wan talks about it to Anakin in the clone wars cartoon i remember once or twice)

Though, R2 has gone through several and still keeps pretty much the same personally so, yeah, fiction eh?

I think Artoo hasn't had a memory wipe onscreen (which says a lot about him), but Threepio was given one at the end of Episode III (which explains why he didn't remember Anakin Skywalker or meeting Obi-Wan Kenobi before). Protocol droids may be programmed to respond to people in a certain way, so Threepio's "personality" may not be actually his but a default setting by his manufacturer. Still, given time, Threepio probably would still develop the ability to do things outside of his original programming, which we may have seen to some extent in the movies.

[Hiromi]

This thread reminded me of that line from C3PO : "we were made to suffer, it's our lot in life"

That's exactly what i meant by poor design cause from an utility stand point that's not a way of thinking a machine should be able to have. A hammer who can be depressed is not one i would want to buy.

it could be worse

[Vic Vega]

Droid personalities and emotions seem to be more a bug than a feature, which can be prevented by simply performing standard maintenance.

Assassin bot HK-47 was designed to hate organic life and love killing. So his personality came from his function and wasn't something that developed later.

Of course, HK-47 was never really canon, near as I can tell.

[BeastieRunner]

Droid personalities and emotions seem to be more a bug than a feature, which can be prevented by simply performing standard maintenance.

K2's personality came from reprogramming. They even said so in the movie. I can see that as a valid argument.

[WebLurker]

The (canon) one-shot comic C-3PO: The Phantom Limb had some pretty interesting thoughts on this subject and droid sentience.

[Buried Alien]

It makes you wonder if a droids' rights movement exists in the STAR WARS Galaxy.

Buried Alien (The Fastest Post Alive!)

[MASTER-OF-SUPRISE]

I might be wrong about this but didn't one of the IG units lead a droid uprising in the original EU? Don't know if that has relevance or not but it might be something worth considering.