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"The U.S. is not waging the Cold War in outer space. We have no moon colonies, and our supercomputers are not nearly as super as the murderous HAL. "

2001 was a prescient film, but the details have turned out somewhat differently than Kubrick and Clarke imagined. HAL was portrayed as truly sentient. The same cannot be said of any AI existing today. However, HAL was also immensely limited. He was like a servant or child in his abilities. He was not the the oracle and gateway to the sum of all human knowledge, as the computers of today have become. If you asked HAL how to build a boat or how to score a date with a beautiful woman, he'd have been baffled. Google, on the other hand... HAL also had a large central core that could be attacked. If we built a true AI today, it's possible that the brains of such a beast could be the size of a pocket watch and the software copied and transferred freely. If such a viral consciousness had infested the Discovery, Dave would truly have had nothing to strike back against. HAL would not have been a single consciousness, but a legion!

Meanwhile, the U.S. is very much still engaged in a struggle for control of space. Other challengers have appeared, but Russia hasn't gone anywhere, and that particular war seems to be getting colder by the minute. However, the commercialization of space has been late in coming. Pan Am's collapse must have delayed things somewhat. However, it's finally starting to happen.

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"Mother, on the other hand, spends the whole movie like a fated southern belle hooked on laudanum, locked in her room. She can’t even advise on how to defeat the monster. The computer cannot help. No costly investment in heavy capital will keep nature at bay. "

Alien does indeed present a very different view of technology. Where, in 2001, technology was the tool of humanity, uplifting it to greater and greater heights, in Alien technology cannot overcome the base nature of humans. The people in space aren't heroes or explorers, but working-class stiffs trying to make a living. Technology serves its owners first and foremost. The corporation's interests reign supreme, even over the space workers very lives. This vision too is both wrong yet prescient. The computers of today are of tremendous help, but are also tools of control. You can ask google how to do practically anything, but you have to accept the fact that your request will be logged by the NSA (and probably other organizations) for future reference should you ever be naughty. Computers do not directly control us, but other humans use computers to tell us how to do things. For example, look up why UPS drivers are trained to avoid turning left. Computers and automation have eliminated many jobs, but always seem to create even more in the process.

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The last few years have greatly increased my optimism for the future. It seems that we're finally pulling out of the cyberpunk dystopian funk of the last decade or so and trying to do "big" things once again. Electric cars are finally a practical reality. Self driving cars are close at hand. Private space flight is taking off. People are talking about capturing and bringing asteroids down to Earth for their resources. Space elevators that will make getting bulk quantities of material off of Earth seem almost possible. Quantum cryptology is currently in limited use and expanding, and may one day offer us all security from the NSA's of the world, even should they gain the tremendous power of quantum computers, which themselves will offer humanity fantastic new abilities. 3D printing is rapidly improving and making new things possible, and our advances in nanotechnology will only amplify and ramify their capabilities. It's an exciting time to be alive, even in spite of all the nicks and cuts we receive from the other side of every new sword we invent. Humanity needs to keep its ideals and be on guard against the darker half of it's nature, but there are many great reasons to think we might just surprise ourselves and turn out okay after all.