Are machines more human than humans?

Rating: 10/10 (4 August 2005)

Most people probably know the story. One group of apes forces another away from a water hole. The other group then comes across the monolith, which seems to imbue them with a new ability. One of the apes realizes that he can use a bone as a weapon, and forces the other group away from the water hole. Millions of years later, a bunch of people on the moon discover the monolith, which has indeterminate effects on their equipment. Eighteen months later, supercomputer HAL tells astronaut Dave Bowman (Keir Dullea) that there will be a failure. When the failure never happens, Dave and his co-astronaut Frank Poole (Gary Lockwood) realize that HAL may be malfunctioning and get into a pod so that they can talk about disabling him. But HAL can read their lips, and begins plotting against them. He kills Poole, and so Dave quickly disables him. After coming across the monolith, Dave then goes through a time-space continuum, which ends with him seeing an elderly version of himself. The elderly version then sees an even older version. The older version sees the monolith, which then portrays a fetus, which seems to introduce a new stage of humanity.
It goes without saying that "2001: A Space Odyssey" is a thinking person's movie, but what is it saying? Knowing that insanity is a frequent theme in Stanley Kubrick's movies, let's address it here. We would jump to say that HAL is insane, but is he? He was programmed to complete the mission, and he would probably see fit to eliminate any perceived impediments. In Kubrick's "Paths of Glory", the soldiers disobeyed orders because they knew that it would be insane to obey; HAL cannot disobey orders because he is just a series of chips, wires and electronic impulses. So in a way, the people who designed him were the insane ones.
What about the humans-vs-machines issue? Dave is human and HAL is a machine, right? Well think about it. When Dave tries to retrieve Poole after HAL kills him, the claws almost look like they're cradling Poole, while Dave doesn't seem to express any emotion.
As for relations to other Kubrick movies, technology is going out of control, like in "Dr. Strangelove", and they are completely trapped, like in "The Shining".