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So, in The Mandalorian, in the episode "The Prisoner," they had a droid, named Zero, pilot their ship because a droid can pilot a ship better than a person.

Now, that got me wondering, doesn't a ship have an AI of its own? Pretty much every peace of machinery, even Gonk Droids which are just walking power plugs, have some sort of AI built into them so that they can follow commands and execute tasks without oversight. And C-3PO says "this ship seems to have the most peculiar dialect" when talking about the Millenium Falcon, and in Solo, we see that L3 actually has been plugged into it, so the ship does have her personality.

So why can't it pilot itself? If droids really can pilot ships better than people, then why do ships need people to fly them?

I think in most situations, like generally navigating through the galaxy to get from point A to point B, a droid pilot would be a good choice.

But perhaps in sketchy situations(like battles and whatnot), it's better to have a well-trained living pilot, as they're more likely to take risks that your standard droid might not?

Fair enough. I was hoping this concept would be refrenced or explained somewhere, but I guess that's as good an answer as I'm getting.

Yeah, I just spent way too long looking into this, and that assessment is the best explanation I can think of (and that organic labor may be cheaper, what with not needing repairs and all).

Ships are equiped with minor artificial intelligence and can communicate with people and droids. A main computer, as well as something called a "flight computer" are both managed by this artificial intelligence, and translate the pilot's relatively simple commands into all the complicated actions needed to fly the ship. This artificial intelligence also has access to the ship's sensors.

There is such a job as a "navigator" which can be done by an organic, since all they're doing is telling the ship where to go and the computer is doing the heavylifting, but droids, especially astromech droids, can be navigators as well, and usually perform better than organics.

So, I imagine the only reason you'd want to control your ship is so that you get to make the decisions. If there had been an astromech controlling the Falcon in ESB, they never would have escaped. I guess the option of a virtual navigator may exist if you have an astromech with you.

Besides that, people may have had jobs as navigators because their employers didn't want to buy droids.

I imagine it would also depend on the droid's programming.

Most droids definitely wouldn't be programmed to take the same risks as guys like Poe and Han, but a select few 'uncuffed' droids, like Zero from The Mandalorian, will evidently take those risks.

Makes sense. And I suppose that's largely dependent on the Droid's metaprogramming, since their personalities are mostly a result of their experiences. So you can't reliably find a droid that's willing to take the right risks.

In Legends Thrawns Dark Force originally had AI during the Clone Wars but thanks to said AI it accidentally sent the Dark Force to a random Hyperspace jump which made it untraceable and stranded in the middle of nowhere. I'm guessing AI just unreliable.

Hmm. Thanks, that's interesting.