Interview: Star Trek’s George Takei On Space Travels, AI And His Legacy

Humanity is finally going where no one has gone before — more than a half century after Star Trek first entered the pop culture psyche.

The successful splash down of SpaceX over the weekend with four tourists who orbited Earth for three days has spurred a surge in interest in space travel. SpaceX told reporters it can fly five to six private missions a year and will increase that number as demand dictates. At the same time, NASA is gearing up to build habitats on the moon by 2024 and Mars by 2030. Suddenly, planetary joyrides are a reality and no longer limited to the science fiction that inspired them.

After decades of stagnation, the commercialization of space is accelerating at a rapid pace, thanks to billionaires Elon Musk of SpaceX, Richard Branson of Virgin Galactic, and Jeff Bezos of Blue Origin — all sci fi fans. Bezos even had a cameo in Star Trek Beyond.

So when I was offered an interview with George Takei, who played Sulu in Star Trek: The Original Series, I jumped at it. Now a playable character in Star Trek Fleet Command, a game that’s gone cross-platform, he shared with me his thoughts about the evolution of technology, the promise and perils of AI, and the challenges ahead as we venture off planet. He also played a little TV trivia.

This conversation has been condensed and edited for clarity.

PARIS: Science fiction is often credited by technologists for inspiring the innovation powering our future. SoundHound cofounder Keyvan Mohajer is a Trekkie with a voice AI startup valued at more than a billion dollars. In an interview with me, he said that when he was ideating his company, he took inspiration from Star Trek and considered developing the holodeck, replicator and transporter.

Which technology from the show would you most like to see made into a product?

TAKEI: The transporter. As an avid traveler I’ve come to hate the way airports are mismanaged — losing luggage, switching gates, canceling flights. Anything that gets me there sooner without the hassle would be great, including stepping on a pad, sparkling for a brief moment, then bopping out at my destination. I'm sure Luddites like Dr. McCoy would object to having their molecules messed with, but I welcome it.

One of the most memorable AI characters in the original series is a transporter called “The Guardian of Forever” which takes Captain Kirk and Spock back in time. Kirk falls in love and must chose between his own personal happiness and the consequences of messing with the timeline.

Throughout the generations, sinister AIs appear as supercomputers that attempt to wrestle control of the ship and seduce the crew. Do you think Gene Roddenberry, the show’s creator, had concerns about AI becoming an existential threat?

Science fiction aside, I personally believe that AI can never be the enemy. It’s merely a tool for which human judgment determines the outcome.

There’s a great New York Times article about AI writing its own code and poetry, but it’s doing so based on information given to it by humans. AI should not be seen as a creative thinking being, rather it’s a valuable aid that can help us explore the complexities of the universe.

We’ve now entered the age of space tourism. Do you have any interest in going up?

In some respects, I feel like I’ve already gone. Gene’s son Ray Roddenberry took me and my husband Brad to the Zero-G experience in Las Vegas. After an unbearable crushing feeling where some people actually lost their breakfast, there was this incredible sensation of feeling lighter than air as we floated around. I can imagine how that must feel in space.

Star Trek was ahead of its time in so many ways, but most people don’t realize it was produced by the comedian Lucille Ball, best known for her role in the sitcom, I Love Lucy. What’s the backstory?

Lucille Ball was a smart businesswoman who, along with her husband and co-star Desi Arnaz, negotiated the rights to their show and parlayed the profits into Desilu Productions. After their divorce, she took over the studio and named Hollywood screenwriter Herb Solow head of production who brought her the Star Trek pitch from Gene. When the network rejected the first pilot, she agreed to a second, which was unusual, but it was that one that got picked up by the network and I was in it.

An interesting side story is that Gene’s girlfriend (and later wife) appeared in the first pilot as the second in command, but the network wanted that role recast as a man, so Gene gave her a blonde wig and made her a nurse to keep her in the series. Other than that, the show had a lot of diversity for the era. Gene felt television was being wasted on mindless quiz shows and wanted to address the civil rights and anti war movements. Thankfully, Lucille Ball made it possible.

How do you feel about being a playable character in the game Star Trek Fleet Command?

I love that Sulu, a swashbuckling fencer and number one graduate of Starfleet Academy, got to achieve his ambition of becoming the captain of his own starship. I hope players enjoy the journey.

What do you see as the biggest threats to humanity as we set out on voyages to explore the unknown?

Well, wherever we go, we need to stay vigilant of the fallibility of humans as we have the potential to become our own worst enemy.

When I was five years old, soldiers came to the front door of our house and at gunpoint forced us out of our home under orders from the U.S. president in reaction to the attack on Pearl Harbor. I’ll never forget the terror of that morning and being crammed onto that truck with my mother, my little brother, my baby sister, and father, with only the belongings we could carry with us.

We were American citizens, but for no other reason than our race, we were labeled enemies of the state. The government froze our bank account, took our house, and sent us far from Los Angeles where had been living a comfortable life. We were sent to the swamplands of Arkansas and held captive behind a barbed wire fence for four long years.

When we were finally released, we were given $25 each and a bus ticket to Skid Row to live in abject poverty. We struggled for years, but my father worked hard as a dishwasher and was able to move us into the barrio where he started a business that ultimately got us back to the area where we once lived.

This is the story of the 120,000 innocent Japanese Americans who had their lives taken from them in an instant. We must never forget that the order came from Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the very president who said “we have nothing to fear but fear itself,” yet he himself so easily succumbed to mass hysteria over an imagined alien threat and with a stroke of his pen abandoned the rule of law meant to protect us all.

What would you like your legacy to be?

Despite the treachery I lived through as a child, at 84 years I feel I’ve had an amazing life. Star Trek has given me a platform to tell this tale and remind people that democracy is fragile. I have made it my mission to make America a true people’s democracy with equal rights for everyone, and that is what I want my legacy to be.