Making sense of Star Wars

Can robots really behave like humans?

In the Star Wars universe, you can travel in hyperspace, duel with swords made of light, and talk to metal robots. Find out if any of this cool stuff is really possible in Issue 4 of Flipside. And here we give you a little bit more.

Can C3PO think? Is R2D2 really cheeky?
Poor old C3P0. Everything makes him nervous. He doesn't understand humans, and all those noisy battles really scare him. Plus, he hates space travel. Worst of all, he gets fed up with R2D2's annoying habit of insulting him, or wandering off and getting them both into trouble.

C3P0 and R2D2 These two lovable robots behave just like people. Does that mean they really are like us? In Star Wars, the answer seems to be "yes". Today there are many real-life robots whose bodies are similar to R2D2's or C3P0's. Some of them can walk and even talk a little bit. But getting their electronic brains to "think" in a human way, like our cute metal movie mates, is not so easy.

Here's an example. We know that apples should be green, not blue, but that's not the same as being "aware" of an apple's greenness once we have one in our hand. That difference is what separates human minds from robotic intelligence.

Try an experiment. Visualise a ripe green apple in your mind right now. A robot can spot an apple by comparing its shape with a database in its memory, and by checking the wavelengths of green light bouncing off it. But can it "experience" greenness in the same way that we can?

Our awareness of the world, and of our own existence (our "consciousness") is difficult for scientists to explain, and even harder to duplicate in a computer. Colour and other everyday sensory experiences, such as heat and cold, or the smell of frying bacon, cannot easily be translated into computer software for a robot's brain. We can create robots that look as if they're alive on the outside, but so far we don't know how to make them actually feel alive on the inside.

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