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  Now
we are into major league psychotic computers. The HAL 9000 from
2001: a Space Odyssey is the gold standard of computers gone
wrong. HAL was just too good to be true. He was sentient,
more intelligent than any human being, yet he was deferential,
helpful, courteous, and, unlike Colossus, hadn't so much as a
peashooter at his disposal. So, when he went bat guano crazy it
was more than a little alarming; especially as the astronauts of
USS Discovery became aware that their utter dependence on HAL for
the very air they breathed gave him the most powerful weapon of all.
In the film, Stanley Kubrick kept
HAL's condition neatly ambiguous. Whether he went nuts because
of faulty programming or because he just couldn't take Poole's singing
"The Happy Wanderer" day and night, HAL's rebellion became not only a
personal struggle for survival, but an allegory for man's fight
against being supplanted by his own creations.
Though I doubt that Bowman was
thinking that when he blasted himself into that airlock. More
likely it was along the lines of, "I must be (*&^(^@$#@ nuts doing
this! (*&$^() HAL! I'll tear every *($$%% diode out of his
*&$$@%$ processor, that's what I'll (*&E$$#^ do!"
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