2001: A Space Odyssey – imagining where AI could lead (sep 6, 1968 – oct 31, 2001)

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Minsky influenced science fiction too. He advised Stanley Kubrick on the film 2001: A Space Odyssey, featuring an intelligent computer, HAL 9000.

During one scene, HAL is interviewed on the BBC talking about the mission and says that he is "fool-proof and incapable of error." When a mission scientist is interviewed he says he believes HAL may well have genuine emotions. The film mirrored some predictions made by AI researchers at the time, including Minsky, that machines were heading towards human level intelligence very soon. It also brilliantly captured some of the public’s fears, that artificial intelligences could turn nasty.

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