Star Wars, A.I., and Us
As I understand (or rather half-recall from a late night Wookiepedia session), there are five classes of AI in the Star Wars universe. They begin at a very basic level, only intelligent enough to perform its duties, requiring minimal interaction with human users — even Amazon Alexa might be this class. C-3PO would fall into one of the higher (4/5) classes, being designed specifically for complex human (and other) social interaction. Artoo probably a 3 initially, requiring some communication with engineers and such, but not enough that he was given a full language unit. Now, Star Wars AIs will, over time, develop 'quirks' — essentially glitches or ghosts in their machine learning that seem irrational or unique. Enough of these obviously start to take the form of 'personality', arguably even sentience. Most droids are subject to regular memory wipes and resets to minimise the development of these quirks/personalities (very Blade Runner). I believe this is ostensibly so th