It’s my personal theory that Art hadn’t actually intended to introduce itself to SecUnit until it started watching Worldhoppers.
Minor spoilers for Network Effect ahead, proceed at your own risk.
The thing is that Art’s existence is the biggest secret that the university has. Is that really the sort of thing you go announcing to random rogue SecUnits you just met?
Sure Art CLAIMS later that it wanted to make sure that SecUnit didn’t attempt to hack its system, but why would it do that? It didn’t try to hack it to get onboard. It hadn’t shown any interest in any of its data. As far as SecUnit knew it was just a bot piloted cargo ship. And even if it had a reason to try, there’s no way it could have actually hacked it. It’s Art.
So maybe you met a surprisingly polite rogue SecUnit, who asked you for a ride. Maybe you’re a very bored transport that was just handed a very interesting data collection opportunity. Maybe you let it onboard and study it a little in secret. THat all makes sense.
But you know what Art CAN’T do in secret? It can’t watch media through SecUnit’s feed. Its presence is incredibly obvious, like a much larger person watching your personal display over your shoulder while leaning on you, according to SecUnit.
So you’ve got a rogue SecUnit onboard, you’re all ready to secretly watch it and gather data, when suddenly it starts watching a cool looking show about research transports. Now you realise there’s a once in a lifetime opportunity here; a chance to watch a cool looking show with additional data that will actually allow you to process the emotional context of it. This is literally never going to happen again. What’s an asshole research transport to do? Not watch it? Hell no. But once the SecUnit knows that there’s a sentient intelligence onboard, there’s a much higher risk of it trying to hack the systems. So you have to get in ahead of it and make sure it doesn’t try any funny business.
I 100% believe that this is what happened, and no amount of canon evidence will dissuade me from it. Art is a nerd and it compromised its university’s security for TV, fight me.