As far as cinema history goes the Hal 9000 from Kubrick's 1969 masterpiece 2001 A Space Odyssey might possibly be the most peculiar and omnious villain to ever grace the silver screen because of how chillingly rational he is, and also because hes not a human being. But to this day people are still debating whether the Hal 9000 was trully evil, or did he do it based on a cyber glitch called 'hofstadter moebius loop'. Many have theorized that HAL, the computer genius turned villain of the spaceship Discovery, went mad during the Jupiter mission. However there is an alternative theory: that HAL acted rationally and logically, indeed with cold, calculating precision befitting a machine of his intelligence.
But to find all this out you need to follow some detective principles, such as; Hal's origin, personality trails, beliefs, values, and intent. Also what he did, the reason why he did it, and who he is. This debate continues to go on because its beyong subjectivity, it asks the profound question 'do computers have a soul?'.
Mathematician Alan Tourin who back in the 1940's answered the question of whether or not machines are capable of thought:
''If the response is generated by a machine during conversation were indistinguishable from the responses that a human would make in a similar then it stands to reason that the machine was indeed thinking, as how does one find the correct response during conversation, other than to think of that correct response.''
In 2010 there was even a banned thought experiment relating to future AI's that would target individuals to do their evil bidding called Roko's Basilisk which I will leave you a link to check out: SLATE magazine
Even philosopher Daniel Dennett asks, “Did HAL commit murder?” His chapter, published nearly 25 years ago in ''HAL's Legacy'' a collection of writings that explore HAL’s tremendous influence on the research and design of intelligent machines, remains an indispensable introduction to the thorny problems of “murdering” by computers and the “murder” of computers. He focuses on the central concept of mens rea, or “guilty mind,” asking how we would ever know when a computer would be so self-aware as to satisfy the legal criterion to make him (it) guilty of murder.
In 1962 Arthur C. Clarke, who wrote the novel – and co-wrote the screenplay for the movie – “2001: A Space Odyssey”, he visited Bell Labs before putting the finishing touches on the work. There, he was treated to a performance of the song ‘Daisy Bell’ (or, ‘A Bicycle Built for Two’) by the IBM 704 computer. This evidently inspired him to have HAL sing the song as an homage to the programmers of the 704 at Bell Labs, John L. Kelly, Carol Lockbaum, and Max Mathews. Kelly and Lockbaum programmed the lyrics, and Mathews the accompaniment.
The novel explains that HAL is unable to resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately and orders specific to the mission requiring that he withhold from Bowman and Poole the true purpose of the mission. With the crew dead, he reasons, he would not need to be lying to them.
He fabricates the failure of the AE-35 unit so that their deaths would appear accidental. In other words, HAL is asked to lie, and he doesn't take to it very well, to say the least. The conflict between his mission objectives backs him into a corner where he has to make some pretty big (and cold) leaps in logic in order to reconcile the paradox in his programmed orders. But also Hal was incapable of abstract thought which is why he wasnt able to understand the difference between a secret and a lie, which created a loop of paranoia in his psyche which conflicted with his programing, and when he finds out his crew members wanted to shit him down he goes into survival mode. He didnt know the difference between sleep and death so he followed through on the only solution he thought was logical. This is how we know Hal could feel some human emotion, and the unknown instils fear within him, which is why at the end he tells Dave ''Im afraid''. And emotion is the primary catalyst for irrational behaviour. What Hal did was evil because of the moral code ''thy shall not kill' but to Hal the greater good was that he successfully complete his mission to Jupiter, so his programing prevented him from seeing what he did was wrong.
Even now in modern times the mystique of Hal 9000 hasnt diminished. When the Kubrick exhibition arrived in London the longest selfie line was for people to have a photo with the original Hal 9000. Here below is a photo of cult filmmaker Fabrizio Federico with the famous AI.
In the end lets leave it to the films director to settle the score. In an interview, Stanley Kubrick gave a quote which supports this reading, saying, "In the specific case of HAL, he had an acute emotional crisis because he could not accept evidence of his own fallibility. ... Most advanced computer theorists believe that once you have a computer which is more intelligent than man and capable of learning by experience, it's inevitable that it will develop an equivalent range of emotional reactions — fear, love, hate, envy, etc. Such a machine could eventually become as incomprehensible as a human being, and could, of course, have a nervous breakdown — as HAL did in the film."
