To Ponder.....

[frank_knight]

Friends and acquaintances of mine know that I am a fanatic of KR. I am constantly being asked general questions about the show, the car, and the plots/backplots. Anyway, one question I am more frequently asked is why sometimes KITT can detect most any and all movement around him or michael, and then other times, michael gets snuck up on, or KITT gets snuk up on ect ect....the obvious, "unfun" answer is..its hollywood...there wouldnt be an episode if KITT detected or saved the day from everything...but, Like I said, thats the unfun answer...so, anyone care to give me there thoughts??

[J-Knight]

KITT was not in Full Survalence Mode.
KITT needed to re-charge his Power packs so did not have full scanner range.

Those are afew fun ones I came up with :D:-P

[frank_knight]

Yup..Ive tried to satisfy the causal fan of the show with those answers but it snowballs...."whats survalence mode??"..the I just roll my eyes and kick them out of my living room

[HungarianKnight]

Kitt usually ceases tracking something when he has to Turbo Boost or has to take a high-egergy turn with rocket assist. For me, this means that Kitt is unable of multitasking, he can't use his Surveillance Mode and Turbo Boost, etc simultaneously...

[LoneKnight]

I've watched every episode on DVD for the past several months, just finishing up this last Monday with Voodoo Knight. It's so predictable for KITT to NOT do something, simply for driving the storyline and the episode.

Now then, here's a potential reason: Think back to Knight of The Phoenix when Devon is introducing Michael to the Knight 2000. Remember the line, "....unless, specifically so ordered by it's pilot." Maybe I'm mis-interpreting this line, but when Devon said this it explained quite a few things about why KITT didn't do certain things throughout the series. Unless Michael ordered KITT to perform a certain task, or unless KITT was in some kind of danger, KITT would wait for orders to act from Michael.

That said, this explanation might be plausible for why KITT doesn't activate Surveillance mode, or why he didn't turbo-boost out of the container, etc. etc.

However, it all comes down to one basic thing: it's for the story.

Think about it: in the episode "KITTnap", when KITT fell into the container, the first thing I thought of was, "Use the trajectory feature with your turbo-boost and get out of there, like you did when you were in the car-crusher!" But, as the episode progressed i realized it was simply for that purpose: story progression.

Now let's take another example: in Voodoo Knight, when the crazy voodoo lady was trying to get away in her car with the crown, Michael called out to KITT to stop her. First thing I thought of that made sense: micro-jam her brakes.
Nope. KITT peeled out, got in front of voodoo chick, and that was it. She didn't get away, she didn't back up, didn't get out of the car and start running....just sat there and waited for RC and Michael to run over and order her to hand over the goods. Why? Simple...the episode was almost over.

A lot of it really cannot be explained logically. Most of the things that KITT doesn't do is simply for the story....if not, then perhaps there are still some kinks left to work out in KITT's AI programming.

[T.A.H.O.E.]

Given KITTs programming...and all of his parameters,operations,both active/passive,

The program that puts him into preservation mode of Michael or whom ever is with him-or-him & Michael is fundamentally a mix of the three laws of robotics....a governing program.

Tho KITT like Robot B-9 & DATA can grow
and adapt/ ajust/evolve the program But not violate it.

[FuzzieDice]

However, if KITT, as an AI, became sentient, then the 3 laws would not have any effect, as he'd be freely able to think on his own, without need of primary programming (ie. he'd "outgrow" it). It would then be his WILL to protect others, especially Michael, and not some dominant program.

And then again, the dominant program doesn't always work. Look at Lost Knight where KITT loses his memory. Michael took for granted about kITT's Dominant program and KITT said "What's a dominant program?" And if Michael hadn't put the new memory in, KITT WOULD probably have run over him. Or would he? Maybe not... he was going very slowly, hoping Michael would just move away. But KITT did indicate threats beforehand. A dominant program would probably have prevented him from that, if he remembered it.

Computers are quite complicated though. So it's hard to say if the program would have taken over despite KITT (the AI) not remembering he has such a program or not.

BTW, for those that are new, I get into AI debates quite a lot. I'm also moderator at Digital Girl (http://digitalgirl.co.uk) which is a place for discussing chatbots, AIs, and what not. Why they named the site that, I'm not sure, other than they do make Haptars (Haptek's People Putty) to work with Ultra Hal Assistant (http://zabaware.com), so maybe it had something to do with that too.

But anyway, AI is a fascinating science to think about, and just thinking about KITT's way of doing things is also interesting.

[T.A.H.O.E.]

I CONCUR....WELL SAID.

[Knight Rocker]

Kitt usually ceases tracking something when he has to Turbo Boost or has to take a high-egergy turn with rocket assist. For me, this means that Kitt is unable of multitasking, he can't use his Surveillance Mode and Turbo Boost, etc simultaneously...

He used both simultaneously in "Circus Knights"

[March2875]

Kitt explained why He didn't just Turbo Boost out of the container in Kittnap. He couldn't pick up enough speed to penetrate steel. Trajectory Guide just guides the angle in which Kitt jumps it doesn't have anything to do with how powerful the Boost has to be. In the car crusher from Blind Spot Kitt didn't have to pentrate anything the crusher had an open end He just jumped out from under the closing lid.

[AtariKnight]

I think, It's one of those things that you can argue to insanity....Like why in Battlestar Gallactica, Where Three cyclons were needed to pilot a fighter?, or in Doctor Who, Why Daleks can't climb stairs?......Or even how is the Tardis even possible, for that matter? (Big Dr Who fan )

[LoneKnight]

Kitt explained why He didn't just Turbo Boost out of the container in Kittnap. He couldn't pick up enough speed to penetrate steel. Trajectory Guide just guides the angle in which Kitt jumps it doesn't have anything to do with how powerful the Boost has to be. In the car crusher from Blind Spot Kitt didn't have to pentrate anything the crusher had an open end He just jumped out from under the closing lid.

If I remember correctly in the episode with the car-crusher (what the heck was the name of that episode?! It was from season 2), KITT's trajectory guide gave him a pretty good arc for turbo-boosting. Meaning, that he could have cleared that container if he wanted to....

And that's another thing: something that just popped in my mind was, "What if KITT just went up, and then came back down again in the same spot?" You would think that a car that has the ability to propel itself through the air would have some kind of attitude thrusters to maintain a level "flight"...why wouldn't it make sense for KITT to re-engage the turbo-thrusters in mid-flight to alter his trajectory? I can imagine if there's not enough power for a burst that gets him off the ground in the first place, but just enough to change his "flight path"....

[J-Knight]

The episode with the crusher is "Blind Spot"