Things Not Right

[Stargazer]

I guess I really didn't think some things were quite right with the 2 hour movie :

No EBS to go with the Attack mode / SPM
The single red light in front that has a trailing / fading effect
What happened to the button pushing?
Bullets that bounced off the car without the car having to "regenerate"
Watch communicator (whats up with earpieces?)
Voice box in front of the driver

[snafu]

I think there's about 20 other threads going about the same stuff.
Cool for noticing but maybe you could find some answers there?

[DorianX]

Perhaps it's a dead horse too, but there's one "mistake" that strikes me as really troubling.

We establish early on that KITT is programmed, like his namesake, to protect human life, but we are given the answer to a long-standing question when KITT tells Sarah that his directives allow him to endanger the lives of other people if it is necessary to protect *her*.

At the climax of this movie, Mike drives KITT into the path of the Blackriver truck, *killing* the villains. Now, this is a neat solution, and (Though I'm personally not happy about how glibly it was done, especially right after Sarah talked Mike out of shooting the thug back at the hotel -- what's the moral here? "It's wrong to kill, unless doing so is expedient?" or maybe "Vehicular Homicide is not as bad as Gun Homicide"?) it is not a terrible argument that it was "the only way". But Mike and Sarah's lives are *not* in danger. Firstly, with KITT on-line, they can't be hurt by the villains. Secondly, they aren't even being chased like before -- they're the ones doing the chasing. You could make a very good argument that Mike's actions were justified, but that's the sort of thing that you'd probably have to decide in a court (On first blush, Mike has *committed vehicular homicide* -- more, he *premeditated* it. Whether or not it's justified is for a court to decide. I can accept that the FBI would just happily hush that up, but that's for Mike.) There is no way that KITT should have allowed himself to be made a party to murder under any circumstances other than clear and direct self-defense.

[pheonix_knight]

although the occupants of the SUV werent moving, it wasnt made clear they were dead, after all, Graiman was conscious after the impact as was the leader of the bad guys.

I'd like to see an in joke cross over from the 'a team' where no matter what damage to the vehicle, the bad guys stumbled out shaking their heads...

[FX23]

i wanna know why when the bad guys shoot kitt, kitt gets damaged... but when sarah shoots at the bad guys 4x4 and her dad! the 4x4 takes no damage! (at point blank range!)

haha

[goldbug]

We establish early on that KITT is programmed, like his namesake, to protect human life, but we are given the answer to a long-standing question when KITT tells Sarah that his directives allow him to endanger the lives of other people if it is necessary to protect *her*.

KITT's AI seems to be based partly on Asimov's Three Laws of Robotics. The three laws state:

1. A robot may not injure a human being or, through inaction, allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot must obey orders given to it by human beings, except where such orders would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot must protect its own existence as long as such protection does not conflict with the First or Second Law.

Now, in an of themselves they would prevent KITT from doing any harm at all since the laws to not distinguish between which human beings are to be protected.

However, later on in Asimov's writings, a new law was introduced - the Zeroth Law. This law stated that a robot must not merely act in the interests of individual humans, but of all humanity. My interpretation of all the scenes involved (the Sarah car chase and the Black River collision) is that KITT was enacting a type of judgment based on something akin to the Zeroth Law. The fact is, Black River succeeding could mean all out war. The possibility of their deaths outweighed the larger threat that had potential to affect millions of human beings.

If indeed KITT 3K's AI is just as advanced as KITT 2K's, he would need programming that allows him to make judgment calls such as these and he made one.

Thee is another way to interpret the scene. By the time KITT "realized" what was happening, it was too late. His AI was basically left powerless to do anything. There was no time for him to speed off and have the SUV miss him completely and if he turned off his nanobots there still would have been a spectacular accident. His best option was to protect Sarah and Mike and "hope for the best". In a way, Mike forced KITT's hand.

[DorianX]

Thee is another way to interpret the scene. By the time KITT "realized" what was happening, it was too late. His AI was basically left powerless to do anything. There was no time for him to speed off and have the SUV miss him completely and if he turned off his nanobots there still would have been a spectacular accident. His best option was to protect Sarah and Mike and "hope for the best". In a way, Mike forced KITT's hand.

That doesn't really bode well for KITT if he couldn't react in time to prevent the crash, but yeah, I think that this is the explanation that requires making the fewest assumptions. When they go to series, I really hope that they take some time to explore how KITT deals with things like this. You mention Asimov -- I know that in quite a few of his stories, a conflict between two of the fundamental laws usually caused a robot to malfunction and shut down. (In fact, if memory serves, only a very few robots were able to implement the Zeroth Law without it causing a terminal malfunction). I could imagine that if the original KITT were in the same situation, he might spend some proportion of the episode asking to be shut down rather than face the possibility of being placed in that situation again.

[goldbug]

That doesn't really bode well for KITT if he couldn't react in time to prevent the crash...

Well, what I meant by that was simple physics. If KITT had turned and stopped, he would realize at that moment what Mike was thinking. However, there were what, maybe 3 to 5 seconds for him to do anything? Even if he began to move himself, the SUV would have probably rear ended him (or hit him in the front end if he went in reverse). I just am not sure that KITT could have physically gotten himself out of the way on time.

[DorianX]

That doesn't really bode well for KITT if he couldn't react in time to prevent the crash...

Well, what I meant by that was simple physics. If KITT had turned and stopped, he would realize at that moment what Mike was thinking. However, there were what, maybe 3 to 5 seconds for him to do anything? Even if he began to move himself, the SUV would have probably rear ended him (or hit him in the front end if he went in reverse). I just am not sure that KITT could have physically gotten himself out of the way on time.

3-5 seconds would at least be enough for KITT to pull forward or backward enough that he'd take the impact somewhere other than directly to the passenger cabin.

[k300au]

That doesn't really bode well for KITT if he couldn't react in time to prevent the crash...

Well, what I meant by that was simple physics. If KITT had turned and stopped, he would realize at that moment what Mike was thinking. However, there were what, maybe 3 to 5 seconds for him to do anything? Even if he began to move himself, the SUV would have probably rear ended him (or hit him in the front end if he went in reverse). I just am not sure that KITT could have physically gotten himself out of the way on time.

KITT was under manual control....

Meaning Mike was in control.

[PHOENIXZERO]

And that's all there is to it.

[goldbug]

KITT was under manual control....

Meaning Mike was in control.

Agreed, but the hypothetical was if KITT could have reasserted control since the computer was back up. I'm merely stating even under that circumstance he would not have had enough time to completely get out of the way.

[DorianX]

KITT was under manual control....

Meaning Mike was in control.

Agreed, but the hypothetical was if KITT could have reasserted control since the computer was back up. I'm merely stating even under that circumstance he would not have had enough time to completely get out of the way.

Yeah. Way back in the pilot episode of the original series, we saw KITT take control away from Michael when they were in danger. I think Devon made a point of KITT not just being indestructible, but being nearly impossible to crash.

[Johnathan Kent]

KITT is not a "Robot" in the sense that we think of as a Robot. But he is an Artificial lifeform (IE he has artificial intelligence and can speak) but since he is guided by asimov's code of ethics when it comes to artificial life (Robots) He knew his primary objective was to protect Sarah Graiman no matter the cost. She did at one point override his decision to drive around traffic to save her own life. She was thinking of herself, and not about the lives around her, but KITT was thinking of her and the lives around him if she ordered him to do what she asked. I'm sure the series will be tweaked as the series goes into production...who knows we may even get a different pilot come fall...

[killem2]

You all complain to much. Mostly because you want it to be an 80s cheesy film again and its not going to be. I for one embrace whatever this knew show wants to do because if you didn't catch the OBVIOUS foreshadowing of the funeral, old michael, saying the same damn things wilton knight said to him about one man making a difference, this is truly passing the torch to his son. This is far from any bad movie and if you want to bitch about something go make a thread about KR 2000 that movie blew goat chunks.

[killem2]

That doesn't really bode well for KITT if he couldn't react in time to prevent the crash...

Well, what I meant by that was simple physics. If KITT had turned and stopped, he would realize at that moment what Mike was thinking. However, there were what, maybe 3 to 5 seconds for him to do anything? Even if he began to move himself, the SUV would have probably rear ended him (or hit him in the front end if he went in reverse). I just am not sure that KITT could have physically gotten himself out of the way on time.

Or he computed the fact that if he didn't let mike do that he would have gotten hacked and then they all die and they have the access to promeithus

[k300au]

Have you guys heard "manual over-ride"

[KarlKnightRider]

Another thing worth remembering though if you're going to think deep into this, is that in the entire original series we saw Michael and KITT cutting off other cars and SUVs which although didn't smash into total destruction, they would frequently go over KITTs bonnet, up into the air and crash. There were also a couple of times where they'd explode too.

So the same principles go for the original series as well as the new Pilot IMO.

[DorianX]

Have you guys heard "manual over-ride"

Yeah. I saw it happen when he turned KITT off. And then *he turned KITT back on again*.

[killem2]

Perhaps it's a dead horse too, but there's one "mistake" that strikes me as really troubling.

We establish early on that KITT is programmed, like his namesake, to protect human life, but we are given the answer to a long-standing question when KITT tells Sarah that his directives allow him to endanger the lives of other people if it is necessary to protect *her*.

At the climax of this movie, Mike drives KITT into the path of the Blackriver truck, *killing* the villains. Now, this is a neat solution, and (Though I'm personally not happy about how glibly it was done, especially right after Sarah talked Mike out of shooting the thug back at the hotel -- what's the moral here? "It's wrong to kill, unless doing so is expedient?" or maybe "Vehicular Homicide is not as bad as Gun Homicide"?) it is not a terrible argument that it was "the only way". But Mike and Sarah's lives are *not* in danger. Firstly, with KITT on-line, they can't be hurt by the villains. Secondly, they aren't even being chased like before -- they're the ones doing the chasing. You could make a very good argument that Mike's actions were justified, but that's the sort of thing that you'd probably have to decide in a court (On first blush, Mike has *committed vehicular homicide* -- more, he *premeditated* it. Whether or not it's justified is for a court to decide. I can accept that the FBI would just happily hush that up, but that's for Mike.) There is no way that KITT should have allowed himself to be made a party to murder under any circumstances other than clear and direct self-defense.

Go watch the Pilot. From the 1st series. Listen to what Devin says. I think you'll be shocked.

[killem2]

Have you guys heard "manual over-ride"

Yeah. I saw it happen when he turned KITT off. And then *he turned KITT back on again*.

There is different between shut down and manual override.

[Johnathan Kent]

from what I saw on the new pilot KITT was shut down and there was no "Manual Override" that I saw...In the original series there was a way for Michael Knight to override KITT simply by punching in his security code (If he had one) or if KITT assumed control over the vehicle Michael could simply press the "Manual Cruise" button like in the episode "Trust doesn't Rust". I saw no "Manual Cruise" button in the Knight 3000 (The car) and KITT (The AI) simply asked if Mike was going to make it a habit of driving to which Mike said yes.