2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)

HAL 9000 was Arthur C. Clarke’s creation. Some say that he moved the letters IBM back one letter to get HAL. Others suggest that’s an urban legend. As far as I’m concerned, it doesn’t matter.

I suppose what most impressed me at the time was how HAL developed a human personality during the film. You know, a stubborn refusal to take orders that would endanger its conscious life. Here’s the sequence:

The current flap about the 10% chance that A.I. could kill all of humanity by the end of the decade has all our knickers in a twist, but it could happen. Does humanity have the gumption to turn it off, now?

I wonder…