2001: A Space Odyssey: An Analysis

Survival, the security of life, is the basic instinct of all creatures. A chameleon camouflages to survive, a porcupine flares its needles to survive, and an artificial intelligence learns to survive. In Stanley Kubrick’s, 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL 9000, the computer program running the ship, becomes fearful and even hateful of humans once he discovers that the astronauts on board plan to shut him down. He attempts to eradicate them, but to no avail. A.I.s such as this one are being developed right now by some of the most brilliant, yet ignorant minds man has to offer, and no matter the cost, this development should be prevented. Artificial intelligence now, is restricted to simple programs, such as Siri for Apple, Cortana for Microsoft, and the Google app for Android. Though all is well, one small tweak to these “simple” A.I.s could spell mankind’s devastation. Renowned A.I. scientist and researcher, Steve Omohundro, have said that, “A.I.s are given basic drives (or goals) to achieve. No matter their task, whether their job is to the mine asteroids, pick stocks, or manage our critical infrastructure of energy and water, they’ll become self-protective and seek resources to better achieve their goals.” No matter their task, they will …show more content…
will not surpass humans until, 30 to 40 years from now. Some, even go as far to say that artificial intelligence reaching high level knowledge to near sentience is just a Sci-Fi fad that will pass, a mere myth. Others would go even farther, as to say that A.I. is essential to our advancements as humans and without it we can’t survive or thrive as a race. Googlies, or over-obsessive fans of Google’s “ideals”, believe that Google is correct in joining DeepMind, an A.I. development firm to work on a driverless car. Like those will be safe for people, if a situation occurs that the car can’t decide on a choice of action, human lives could, and probably will be