Star Trek canon just radically changed one huge starship AI rule

In Star Trek: Discovery the answer appears to be yes, which means an old rule from The Original Series has suddenly been reversed. In the big Discovery mid-season finale "...But to Connect," David Cronenberg's Dr. Kovich returns to pass judgment over the sentient shipboard AI known as Zora (Annabelle Wallis). Here's how this episode references The Next Generation and also reaches back to one famous Original Series story about an AI gone berserk. Although much of the Discovery mid-season finale focuses on the actions the Federation will or won't take to retaliate against the unknown species that created the Dark Matter Anomaly, the bigger change is the fact that the status quo of the sentient starship computer, Zora, has taken an uplifting turn. Because Zora has achieved total sentience, Kovich is brought in to assess her.