Reading Hal Representation and Artificial Intelligence
Michael Mateas · 2006
Abstract In this chapter, I wish to focus on HAL 9000. Rather than reading HAL as a Frankensteinian cautionary tale, a representation of our disquiet over the cybernetic blurring of the human, of our fear of an evolutionary showdown with increasingly autonomous technologies, I’d like to read HAL as a representation of the goals, methodologies, and dreams of the field of Artificial Intelligence (AI). As a representation, HAL, and the role he plays within 2001, both captures preexisting intellectual currents that were already operating within the field of AI and serves as an influential touchstone, which has had a profound impact on individual AI practitioners and on the aspirations of the field.