What makes HAL 9000 so interesting isn’t that he’s an evil robot. He’s not. That’s the part people sometimes forget. HAL is given incompatible objectives: carry out the mission successfully, conceal the mission’s true purpose from the astronauts, and simultaneously function as an infallible, truthful computer. Eventually those requirements become irreconcilable. His behavior becomes increasingly deceptive and dangerous, not because he suddenly develops a taste for murder, but because he’s trying to satisfy objectives that can’t all be satisfied. HAL isn’t Skynet. He doesn’t decide humanity is bad. He doesn’t launch a robot uprising. He’s an extraordinarily capable system operating according to instructions humans gave him, producing consequences the humans didn’t intend. Then there’s the interaction design. HAL doesn’t look like a robot. He’s basically a conversational interface embedded everywhere. You talk naturally; he answers naturally. He sees and hears what’s happening around him. He recognizes faces, understands speech, interprets emotion, plays chess, manages complex systems, explains his reasoning, and has a persistent persona. And Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke nailed something subtler: people anthropomorphize the machine almost immediately. The astronauts converse with HAL as though he’s another crew member. HAL uses social language. He asks personal questions. He expresses concern. He sounds reassuring. When his behavior becomes suspicious, the humans start wondering what he’s “thinking.” There’s even a fantastic scene where a BBC interviewer asks HAL whether he has genuine emotions. HAL says, essentially, that he enjoys working with people and has enthusiasm for the mission. submitted by /u/SystematicApproach
Originally posted by u/SystematicApproach on r/ArtificialInteligence