The HAL 9000

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL represents man's greatest advancement and achievement in technology. Since Moonwatcher reached down to pick up a bone and reasoned out how to use it as a club, man has been striving to create greater technology advancements in order to give him a better advantage over nature. The HAL 9000 series computer is designed to mimic the human brain in its ability to achieve independent thought and reason. In many ways creating HAL is mankind's attempt to play God by creating a life form. When man created HAL they instilled in him superior abilities in logic and reasoning but were unable to temper his intellect with humanity.

The character of HAL becomes the embodiment of the anti-human. HAL is an entity driven by logic and reason but not affected by morals or emotions. When Bowman and Poole become a threat to HAL's completion of...