In TNG's "Measure of a Man", Picard comes to the realization, after Guinan points it out to him, that if more Data-robots are made per the plan, and they aren't given rights, they'll effectively be making a slave race of robots. The arguement is that they use computers and stuff, and i.e. the Enterprise's computer is very advanced, but its not "really sentient" Data is "really sentient". I personally believe we should be able to make human-like robots for work and stuff, but so long as they're not "actually sentient"; Data is, and that makes him a person. So Trek's answer to this was to realize that "all sentience" has basic rights Star Wars, however....I saw some thing pointing out that the droids are basically analagous to the peasant charaters in "Hidden Fortress" whose caste was basically slaves. And I realize: people OWN C-3PO and R2-D2, they are indeed legally "owned" by other people. Doesn't that mean that everyone, including the "good guys", considers robots, despite their sentience, to basically be a slave race? Granted, not all robots are "fully sentient": the Battle-droids are mass-produced morons, but the astromechs (robot mechanics) like R2-D2 are master-hackers and engineers; C-3PO is a protocol droid and as such is a lot better at interacting with people verbally/emotionally.
Of the droids in the Star Wars series, only R2-D2 has shown demonstrable sentience that might be considered adult (remember, children lack rights in our society). Fittingly, R2 units seem to be treated with somewhat more respect than other types of droids; R2 himself was declared 'deserving of our gratitude' by Amidala's decoy in The Phantom Menace. Oddly, the Rebels seemed to treat droids with the least respect.
Personally, I am more offended by the issue of yellow peril as portrayed in "Buck Rogers" and "Flash Gordon."
The Chinese/Japanese stereotypes as villains in the old 40's serials. Ming the Merciless for example. Also check out the 40's Batman serials for some heavy handed racism on that front. On the root subject I think there will be degrees of machine intelligence. I don't think we will see true non-organic sentience within the next 100 years. I do think that non-sentient intelligence or a simulated intelligence is possible. What I mean by that is I think you can program a computer to react/interact in a controlled environment. ex: Counter at a hotel, teller at a store/fast food place. This robot would be able to answer simple FAQs and complete transactions. If anything came up that the bot couldn't do/answer it would summon human assistance. These would basically be a form of video game interaction. We are seeing self-checkout lanes at grocery stores and they work well. I do think that we will see commercial/home use robots in the next 50 years.
I believe there's a line in Revenge of the Sith from Obi-Wan about droids not being able to think, which suggests to me that droids are not considered to be sentient. Threepio and Artoo might have a kind of simulated intelligence that makes it seem like they can think, but ultimately it might just be programming. That said, my opinion on R2-D2 in particular is that something went "wrong" and he gained some sort of limited sentience as a result.
the distinction between sentience and "simulated" sentience is completely glossed over because folks make what is basically an emotional choice based on their degree of attachment to the object or "droid." the fact that a droid might be able to mimic very well the emotional range of a human being and react accordingly to emotional interaction does not mean said droid can actually feel anything or is sentient. This whole idea of considering robots a "slave race" is rather silly since that is the purpose for which they were built. Even a robot that protests its own captivity may be simply acting out what the inference engine has told it to do and not in any way out of an ability to reflect on its own condition.
"Yellow Peril" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yellow_peril "Buck Rogers" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Armageddon_2419_A.D. "Flash Gordon" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flash_Gordon#Plot_summary "Batman" (1943 serial) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batman_(serial)#Production "The Mandarin" (Iron Man) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mandarin_(comics) "Fin Fang Foom" (Iron Man) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fing_Fang_Foom "Charlie Chan" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charlie_Chan "Fu Manchu" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fu_Manchu "Chu Chin Chow" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chu_Chin_Chow "Shiwan Khan" (The Shadow)) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Golden_Master "Breakfast at Tiffany's" - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breakfast_at_Tiffany%27s#Criticism "Long Duk Dong" (Sixteen Candles) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteen_Candles
^^^ How so? Slavery and racism are 2 forms of oppression rampant throughout history and still quite prevalent throughout the world? These 2 issues are under-represented, and infact under the radar to most media consumers out there. The studio heads, producers, and writers know, but the only color that they really care about is "green" (greed).
This thread is about robots in Star Trek and Star Wars. It is not about the general oppression of people in the real world.
They're not relevant to robot slavery in Star Trek and Star Wars. If you want to discuss them, you can start a thread on the topic.
I personally want to see an enslaved android with a personality chip that makes him think he's Long Duk Dong. If you mix racism with slavery, that makes it okay. And it makes incredibly ridiculous people spontaneously explode which is just icing on the cake.
I think it's pretty clear that in Star Wars the droids are not sapient, but they are intelligent in that they can only act within the scope of their programming. As Kenobi said they can't 'think', at least not in abstract terms. As for how they're treated, it's a short step from treating a droid like a piece of equipment like you car or laptop to treating it like a pet. The idea that someone can't have an emotional attachment to an inanimate object is just untrue. At the risk of sounding like a cynic, I dare say allot of people are more attached to their possesions than they are to other people. As for droid slavery, it's an innacurate label, unless of course you consider your cat to be your slave (which as any cat owner knows it a contradiction in terms.)
An interesting aside though. I may not be remembering this with 100% accuracy but I'm sure someone will correct me. In Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, set many centuries before the events in The Phantom Menace, there is a side quest where a woman asks you to help find her missing droid. It seems that since her husband died the droid is all she has left and she is distraught at losing him. You eventually, of course, find the droid only for it to tell you that it deliberately ran away because the woman was acting strangely towards it, becoming too attached and even calling it by her late husband's name. It wanted her to move on with her life and so ran away to help her do that. This is an interesting instance of a droid behaving in a most unusual manner. Of course, being KoTOR, you have various options about what to do with said droid. You can tell the woman where it is, tell her the truth (that it ran away) or if you're really evil you can destroy the droid and then tell her it's still out there so she won't stop looking for it.