The machines ultimately do all the thinking, while people do the menial, the mechanical , labor. People become machines. Stanley Kubrick has some important things to say in the film. His characters, however, have virtually nothing important to say. There are roughly 43 minutes of dialogue in this 141- minute film, and almost all of it is meaningless.
Viewers learn very little from the mostly banal exchanges between characters.
On this level we are all equally perceptive and equally blind. Watching a film is really like taking part in a controlled dream. As soldiers in Vietnam used to say, there it is. And he wasn't even there. But conversation at the reception invariably turned to him, and his recorded message had the audience at the theater rolling with laughter.