David Hasselhoff’s Iconic 90-Episode Sci-Fi Action Series Is Officially Free on Streaming
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Subtlety wasn’t exactly a hallmark of 1980s television. This was the decade of private investigators in Ferraris, soldiers of fortune building tanks out of spare parts, ridiculously wealthy families fighting over oil and enough explosions to keep stuntmen employed for years. TV was big, colorful and often completely ridiculous. It was also a lot more forward-thinking than we gave it credit for.
Few shows embodied that contradiction better than Knight Rider. Long before he helped bring down the Berlin Wall, David Hasselhoff played a presumed-dead cop with a new face and identity who traveled the country fighting crime alongside an artificially intelligent Pontiac Trans Am. More than 40 years later, the series is now streaming for free on Tubi, and revisiting it reveals something unexpected: KITT doesn’t seem quite as farfetched as he once did.
We may not have indestructible cars launching themselves over obstacles with Turbo Boost, but talking conversationally with technology, asking it questions and trusting it to perform tasks has become an increasingly ordinary part of life. Knight Rider didn’t predict exactly what the future would look like. Somehow, this gloriously ridiculous ’80s action show did something more interesting: It predicted our relationship with technology surprisingly well.
KITT doesn’t seem so futuristic anymore
Plenty of science fiction stories imagined computers that could talk long before Knight Rider premiered. What’s surprisingly modern about KITT isn’t that he can carry on a conversation. It’s how completely Michael Knight relies on him.
Michael asks KITT questions and expects immediate answers. He uses the AI to find information, communicate with other people, and keep tabs on what’s happening around him. KITT can analyze situations, offer advice, and take control when Michael needs help. Michael even talks to him remotely through his watch, which seemed considerably more impressive years before millions of people started walking around with tiny computers strapped to their wrists.
The most prescient part is how quickly all of this becomes routine. Michael doesn’t marvel every time KITT answers a question or completes a task. He just asks. The technology may be extraordinary, but the way he uses it is remarkably casual.
That’s increasingly how we interact with technology ourselves. We ask digital assistants for directions, recommendations, and information. We talk to AI systems conversationally and hand over tasks that once required considerably more effort. Self-driving cars haven’t quite reached KITT’s crime-fighting capabilities, but the idea of a vehicle navigating without someone touching the steering wheel no longer belongs exclusively to science fiction.
Knight Rider didn’t give us an especially accurate roadmap of what technology would look like in the 21st century. But it did understand something important: Once technology became useful enough, we’d stop being amazed by it and simply start depending on it.
KITT is still the AI dream
More than 40 years after Knight Rider premiered, we can finally talk to artificial intelligence in something resembling a normal conversation. What we still don’t have is KITT.
That’s because KITT wasn’t simply a computer that could answer Michael’s questions. Thanks largely to William Daniels’ unmistakable voice performance, he had a distinct personality. KITT could be sarcastic, cautious, stubborn and occasionally smug. He worried about Michael’s recklessness, questioned his decisions, and wasn’t afraid to tell him when an idea was particularly stupid. Michael didn’t treat KITT like a tool, and KITT didn’t treat Michael like another user submitting a prompt.
That’s much closer to what today’s AI companies are still trying to achieve. Modern assistants can answer increasingly complicated questions, understand natural language and carry on remarkably human-sounding conversations. The harder challenge is making those interactions feel personal and consistent over time. An assistant that understands your preferences, remembers how you like to work and develops a recognizable personality is considerably closer to KITT than one that simply gives you the correct answer.
That’s what Knight Rider imagined remarkably well. The ultimate version of artificial intelligence isn’t necessarily the computer that knows everything. It’s the one you actually want to spend time talking to. KITT made that idea look easy in 1982. More than four decades later, we’re still trying to catch up.
Yes, Knight Rider is still completely ridiculous
None of this means Knight Rider should suddenly be mentioned alongside Blade Runner just because both debuted in 1982 and had some thoughts about artificial intelligence. Watching Knight Rider today isn’t just a reminder of how ridiculous the show could be. It’s a reminder of how wonderfully over-the-top television could be in the 1980s, when seemingly no idea was too big or weird for network TV.
Even the show’s most iconic elements have appropriately strange origins. Composer Stu Phillips’ unforgettable theme was loosely inspired by music from the 19th-century ballet Sylvia and later sampled by artists including Busta Rhymes, Timbaland & Magoo and Panjabi MC. KITT’s pulsing red scanner, meanwhile, was a direct lift from the Cylons from Battlestar Galactica, another Glen A. Larson creation.
The plots were appropriately over-the-top. KITT eventually battled KARR, an amoral prototype that gave viewers the spectacle of two nearly indestructible talking Trans Ams trying to destroy each other. Then there’s the appearance of Michael’s evil look-alike Garthe Knight, which allowed David Hasselhoff to face his most formidable opponent: David Hasselhoff with a goatee. Naturally, Garthe also had Goliath, a nearly indestructible armored semi built to crush KITT.
That’s part of why Knight Rider remains so much fun. It imagined a future where we’d talk to artificial intelligence and form relationships with technology, then wrapped those ideas in Turbo Boosts, evil cars and glorious ’80s excess. Knight Rider predicted our relationship with technology better than anyone expected. Thankfully, it got there in the most ridiculous way possible.
Knight Rider is streaming for free on Tubi.
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