I don't know if this is still done in current fic, but back in the 2000s, ostensibly, once we had KR08, we needed to differentiate in fic between the KI2K and KI3K AIs and personalities.
But there was another reason that became ingrained at that stage of the KR fandom.
KI2K has earned his name. Not an acronym. Not the bite Devon put into speaking it when FLAG first went live. Not the original paper-pushing AI Bonnie created at Stanford. Not the feat of computing Wilton Knight paid for with his life. That was KI2K.
Kitt is the child prodigy carefully reared to do fabulous, revolutionary feats of artificial intelligence...until Michael Knight's handed the keys and the lab doors opened.
KI2K spread his wheels and shed the stale acronym so that Kitt...might learn what it is to be human. Not that that was the original intent... You can tell at first brush that Michael doesn't care to be a nanny, and Kitt will certainly set a few things straight about who's nannying who here.
But it's irresistible, isn't it. KI2K has everything before him to see and learn. He watches Michael eat helpless amounts of cheeseburgers, much to his horror, but the horror is KI2K. Kitt sees it as the nighttime drag on the highway before Michael wants to pull off and grab a bite, and he props up over the scanner so Kitt can still see the stars too, and suddenly Michael and he are having surprisingly stirring conversations about the Universe and why the stars and planets are where they are. As a cop, Michael did enough stakeouts to pick up a few things about stargazing.
KI2K is the pure intellect. Kitt is who learns brawn, with brains, has a place, too. Pressure points. Leverage. Cunning. And suddenly he has a protective streak over Michael that transcends his directive to guard him at all costs.
KI2K is the cautious by-the-book logician. Kitt knows a hunch can be worth a thousand logic trees...because Michael lives by them, and if Michael is to keep on living, Kitt is going to have to jump fast on that bullet train. And Kitt is *good* at hunch making, infinitely better than KI2K.
Kitt is the mad genius who never dreamed the outside world could be so full of wonder and mystery and flavor and flash, and the thrill of Michael just letting him run...as fast as he wants, and turbo-boost as hard and as far as he wants, just for the hell of it. And he's insatiable for it. Like...like...a collector, a connoisseur, a gourmand for humanity. In himself, and in the world around him. KI2K would only view the prompts and queries given to him; however lovingly Bonnie might have given them.
KI2K would deny, disavow, and haughtily criticize any sort of allusive assertion that he has feelings to hurt or to embrace. Kitt is the one who, in a small voice to Michael, admits, full of fear and a mind-shattering amount of doubt, that the acid pit hurt; it hurt so much, and so he can't anymore; he just can't. Until Michael shows him he can. That's it's okay to hurt, but in the hurting, it's choosing to persist and getting back up, fighting on and living on.
KI2K *was* the machine. Kitt is the name of the most gentle yet lionhearted sentience ever created. And he's earned it.
So when you encounter someone who uses "Kitt" and not "KITT" for KI2K, that's either an old fan or at least someone who understands... there is a big difference.
