I have a similar theory about star trek. In one scene there was a blurry picture and to sharpen it Ricker said: "Computer implement recursive Algorithm". That is equivalent to "Computer do something". So now my theory is that there is an intelligent ship with a genius AI that carries around humans that have regressed to toddler intelligence because the AI does everything for them.

The ship is basically human daycare with lots of blinking buttons and moving pictures to keep the humans occupied while the ship does the actual (and probably boring) science.

Starfleet Academy is basically teaching them technobabble and looking great in a uniform while the AIs do the real work.

[–] CrabAndBroom@lemmy.ml 3 points 10 hours ago

The Culture novels by Iain M. Banks basically have this premise. There are super intelligent AIs called Minds that are pretty much gods who run everything, and their civilisation (the Culture) is a utopia for anyone who lives in it. Minds control the ships, which sometimes have crews but they're described as "somewhere between passengers, pets and parasites" in terms of how useful they actually are lol

[–] pinball_wizard@lemmy.zip 10 points 1 day ago* (last edited 22 hours ago)

For more views of Star Trek through this lens, you may want to check out John Scalzi's book "Red Shirts". It has some of the same ideas in play, and they play out hilariously.