A Droid in Your Room? Disney Uses New Technology to Make This Possible

Many exciting things are coming out of Disney news lately with Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser. This will be a fully immersive experience, unlike anything you’ve done before. They say it’s like a cruise except on land, and you are traveling out of this world.

If you are a Star Wars fan, this is a dream come true for you. Although it is quite a pricey voyage, many who were able to get a sneak peak have said it will be worth the price.

Related: Who You Will Meet Onboard Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser

It is extremely different than you will see at a regular Walt Disney World Resort. The “Resort” is the voyage, and most of your time is spent on the Halcyon. The exception to this is when you make a special stop on Batuu.

 

Disney is trying out new technology, and it will be incredible. Droid D3–09 is a test for the new A.I. technology. Although she will not be in person as most of the other characters you will see onboard; you will see her on video screens throughout the Halcyon.

She will be accessible to every Guest in their cabin to speak to. D3 will involve as she “listens, remembers, responds, offers advice, and becomes part of the experience and story alongside the Guest.”

Related: What if You Have Allergies on Star Wars: Galactic Starcruiser?

Dawson Dill who is senior R&D Walt Disney Imagineer and creative lead for D3-O9, shared: “The goal was for this to be a character that you get to know, that changes based on how you interact with her, but also she’s along for the ride as well. So as the events on the Halcyon Starcruiser unfold, those events affect her and how they affect her are made up with the decisions that the guest makes. So from a development perspective, I think it was a fun challenge to bring D3-O9 to life because it was a technology piece. It’s using speech recognition, natural language, understanding, whole bunch of fancy conversational design technology that we’ve been developing.”

 

Dill continued to say: “But then you have a narrative component because at the core it’s about a character. At the end of the day, you want to go in there and talk to a character and have that character shift and change. And also for us, the interaction is just as important as the words. So, are you betraying D3-O9? Are you trying to get D3-O9 to become your friend? Are you helping her to trick the First Order? Or are you helping the First Order to trick D3? There’s a lot of different ways we wanted to be able to play it and make sure that D3-O9 felt like just another member of the crew.”

This is a really exciting step in technology and is a good test for what Walt Disney World could use in the future. Over the next few years we will probably see more and more of this type of A.I. technology coming to the Parks and Resorts.

Related: Did Someone Say Galactic Starcruiser Merchandise?

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