Neil deGrasse Tyson has offered a scientific take on the implications of a recent episode of The Mandalorian. Tyson spoke of the Disney Plus series during an interview with VladTV, saying we could face a fate similar to the robot societies of The Mandalorian if we “left ourselves susceptible” to artificial intelligence.
The astrophysicist said we must “compartmentalize” and limit advances in AI to only a handful of tasks, in the same way “you don’t give the coffee maker control over your car.” deGrasse Tyson went on to suggest that to avoid the killer robots audiences have seen in The Mandalorian, we would have to “double our understanding and implementation of firewalls,” which is science-speak for installing protections to limit the capabilities of AI.
Fans will be well aware of the effects an over-dependance on robots had on The Mandalorian, with the finale of the sci-fi epic landing earlier this month. It marks the most recent time deGrasse Tyson has shared a scientific view on the Star Wars universe. In 2015, the astrophysicist declared that BB-8 is “is waaaaay cuter than R2D2” in The Force Awakens, but doubted the mechanics of BB-8 since his “smooth rolling metal spherical ball would have skidded uncontrollably on sand.”
More recently, deGrasse Tyson commended Star Wars Episode IV for its double sunset scene, saying the depiction of the star system “is the only scientifically accurate thing in all of Star Wars.” In the same interview with VladTv, deGrasse Tyson commented on the space race among billionaires like Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, explained the “ego” required to believe that aliens would want to visit us, and debunked basically the entire premise of Christopher Nolan’s Interstellar.
It’s the kind of broad-ranging conversation you’d expect from a brilliant mind like deGrasse Tyson’s — who has commented on everything from Batman to Top Gun — but he’s equally comfortable chatting about his early days as a hip-hop musician, too.
