2001: A Space Odyssey

It is interesting to note Hal's transition, albeit quick, from trustworthy friend to murderous foe. Look, for instance, at the way he is first introduced and talked about by the Dave and Frank. He is a super intelligent machine, he never makes mistakes, he is integral to the success of the mission, he is just another crew member. It seems that the partnership between the humans and this machine is rock solid, they allow Hal to be part of the crew and Hal does whatever they tell him to. Perfect, right?

But when you think about it, Hal doesn't actually go through a transition at all. He doesn't change at the hands of some troublesome event. The same computer that aided the mission and kept the slumbering astronauts alive is the same one that eventually killed them. The only thing that changed was the level of threat felt by his human counterparts.

It is easy to befriend someone, or something, that doesn't inherently threaten you. It is even easier when this being is programmed to be subservient to you. When asked if Hal could actually think, a political answer was given - "who can really say?". But we can tell that whether or not he can think is irrelevant to them. They just want him to do his job and assist them. They don't care if he's thinking or not. I think by the end of the film we can surmise that Hal probably can think.

This idea also jumped out at me from Turing's piece. He doesn't talk about it in much depth but he hints at this concept of threat. When he talks about the interrogator game, he mentions that a person would never be expected to win a race against an airplane, or an arithmetic challenge against a supercomputer. Certainly we agree, these machines are made to do these things at a much faster speed than humans ever could. But the other side of this coin is that humans expect that we should not be challenged by machines in terms of thinking and, well, acting human.

Perhaps there is some level of threat inherent in the idea of a computer being able to think or act like a computer. Maybe it's because of all the science fiction movies out there, like 2001, that show what could potentially happen when we bestow upon machines our heightened levels of consciousness. Since we have already lost the battles of productivity to machines, how would we feel to know we also lost the creative one?