NCIS season 23 episode 8 takes a detour from Parker’s family drama and dives into one of the most pressing issues of our time: artificial intelligence. After the previous episode deepened the mystery around Parker’s mother, fans expected more answers. Instead, the show pauses that storyline to explore what happens when an AI chatbot joins a team built on instinct, compassion, and human connection.
Caution: This post contains SPOILERS from NCIS season 23 episode 8
AI chatbot DAWN enters NCIS when Director Vance reveals that the DOJ wants to test an AI system within the team. The reactions are immediate and very human, from denial to excitement. But in the end, is DAWN here to stay?
AI chatbot DAWN is here to increase efficiency in NCIS season 23 episode 8
Director Vance introduces a new team member at the beginning of episode 8, telling them that the DOJ wants to test AI to improve investigative efficiency. Everyone is reticent, from Knight not wanting a bot to tell her how to do her job, to McGee, who thinks the system is downright evil.
Is DAWN really after their jobs, as McGee fears, addressing a very real, overarching modern issue? Jimmy agrees to take the bot with him, and at first, he's amused by her confidence in assisting his autopsy, and by how uncannily fast AI learns.
Soon, they form a strange, slightly worrying bond. He enjoys working with her — or rather, having "someone" to talk to — and is in awe of the way she's always one step ahead in the investigation, having the answers the team needs before they get to them, like knowing the victim was using a fake identity, and finding his real one in seconds.
But Jimmy starts losing touch with his coworkers. At first, Kasie is mad at him for bringing the AI into her lab. Even though she eventually admits DAWN helped figure things out faster, the bot eventually gets on their nerves. It interrupts them mid-sentence, breaking their connection, their flow as a team.
AI efficiency vs. humanity in NCIS season 23 episode 8
In the face of the AI making countless suggestions to increase efficiency that just don't make sense to the team, Jimmy argues for the humanity of his job, for following protocol and the importance of humans actually interrogating persons of interest in cases, to catch the nonverbal behavior. She tries to observe what he's talking about by accessing the feed in the interrogation room.
Things between DAWN and Jimmy turn sour when she starts psychoanalyzing him, saying he can't be happy being in the basement all day surrounded by bodies. To her, he denies being lonely, only to admit it in a later conversation with Torres.
Jimmy begins to see just how much the AI lacks morals when she listens in on Torres and Knight in the car, tricking him into eavesdropping, too. Kasie reassures him, saying the bot has no morals, only code, so the eavesdropping wasn’t his fault. She thinks AI is dangerous, and the way they do their jobs matters.
When Jimmy tries to return DAWN to Vance, the director reminds him that the AI was meant to make things easier, "but at what cost?" Jimmy makes his final case when he talks about the way Knight and Torres needed to trust their gut to close the case. She doesn't understand. Jimmy writes the report for Vance, arguing for the need for people who can adapt and read the room.
In the end, NCIS makes its stance clear: AI can assist, but it cannot replace the very thing the team is built on — people.
NCIS airs on Tuesdays at 8/7c on CBS.
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