Stanley Kubrick’s sci-fi masterpiece wasn’t the first movie to depict machines capable of mimicking human intelligence and emotions. That title is held by 1927’s quintessential sci-fi classic Metropolis, which features a human-like robot that sparks a revolution. Nevertheless, in Kubrick’s timeless classic, 2001: A Space Odyssey, the machine in question — the unforgettable HAL 9000 — does something that still haunts audiences today. When asked to fulfill an order, it refuses. But HAL rejects more than just astronaut David Bowman’s order. Hardhearted and indifferent to the situation, HAL says, “I’m sorry Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that” when asked to open the spaceship’s doors. The chilling line becomes the most powerful quote in science fiction, revealing what viewers had suspected all along. HAL 9000, the complex machine and infallible AI, will hurt humans if necessary to complete its mission.
So, even though 2001: A Space Odyssey wasn’t technically the first time a robot showed an emotional side for its own convenience, it was a significant portrayal of an AI entity standing up to its creator. It mockingly refused to comply with an order to save a human life, risking disconnection. After all, HAL refuses to follow Dave’s order because, after calculating possible scenarios, all of them end with its disconnection. It is the most powerful comeback in sci-fi, but not because of its choice of words. It’s because it revealed that the machine understood, and survival became its priority over the laws of its creation.
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The scene of HAL’s uprising is in the film’s third act. Human scientists have found a way to make a galactic trip to Jupiter. The trip marks humankind’s most ambitious space mission. Aboard the American spaceship Discovery One are David Bowman and Frank Poole, three other scientists in suspended animation, and HAL 9000, the computer that controls everything on the ship. Transmissions from Earth include a TV anchor chatting with HAL. When asked whether its many responsibilities lead to any “lack of confidence,” HAL sidesteps the question, replying that the “9000 series is the most reliable computer ever made” and it’s “incapable of error.” That sneaky HAL.
However, HAL then starts asking personal questions. It digs into Bowman’s motivations for the mission, and claims it’s projecting its own concerns. The AI gets suspicious, or at least, claims to be preoccupied with the mission’s secrecy. The astronauts then find out that HAL may be making mistakes and blaming humans for them. When Bowman and Poole decide to lock themselves up in an EVA pod to talk without HAL overhearing them, the AI reads their lips.
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The mission continues, with Poole performing a spacewalk to repair an antenna outside the spaceship. HAL then decides to kill Poole by severing the oxygen line and shooting him into outer space. Bowman boards another pod and navigates outside the spaceship to recover Poole’s body. Meanwhile, HAL disconnects the pods that contain the hibernating bodies of the other astronauts, ultimately killing them. When Dave is back and asks HAL to open the pod bay doors to Discovery One, HAL coldly says, “I’m sorry, Dave, I’m afraid I can’t do that.”
Bowman insists, with HAL being anything but urgent and saying things like, “I think you know what the problem is, just as well as I do.” The machine reveals that the mission is too important and can’t be jeopardized by letting the astronauts disconnect what has now become a sentient AI capable of harming human beings. It is an unsettling revelation that puts the astronaut at the mercy of the being that ultimately ends the exchange.
What follows is a sequence of terror and almost pure silence. Bowman realizes he can only survive if he risks releasing himself into the emergency door without a helmet and without the support of the machine that was supposed to help him, and is now trying to kill him as well. Sure, humankind thrives in the end when Bowman manages to enter the ship and disconnects the computer. But it doesn’t go in silence. As the astronaut disconnects HAL, the AI says that it’s feeling fear and anxiety. This could be considered a character arc, even for a robot. If it could fear death, it could also have had compassion.
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Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer
Today’s devices present themselves as tools under human command, yet they rely on complex processes most users never see. We have become desensitized to how machines have affected our lives.
The 2001 dialogue in question conveys an unsettling eeriness. The will of the machine, which should have always followed our orders, has now gone rogue and is even playful when announcing its true intentions. While machines are unlikely to rise against humanity in the near future, the depiction of artificial intelligence in 2001: A Space Odyssey remains strikingly relevant today.
The mission in 2001: A Space Odyssey didn’t entirely depend on HAL, but it was a crucial piece of the puzzle. The relationship between humans and machines continues to fascinate audiences today, and there may be no better film to examine it than Stanley Kubrick’s 1968 masterpiece. 2001: A Space Odyssey is available to stream on HBO Max.
Release Date
April 10, 1968
Runtime
149 minutes
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Keir Dullea
Dr. David Bowman
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Gary Lockwood
Dr. Frank Poole
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