In "2010", one of the things Clarke did was to subtly retcon HAL to imply that he wasn't quite as generally intelligent as "2001" might have implied. But, yes, in the original book and movie, HAL is clearly at least human-level intelligent but also non compos mentis.
The story's concept of human evolution now seems a bit quaint--primates were probably using tools long before the Australopithecus stage, and the idea (clearer in the book) that proto-humans weren't even really into collective violence before they got uplifted really doesn't square with what we know about other primate species.
![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Re: trippiness
Date: 2024-06-03 02:20 am (UTC)The story's concept of human evolution now seems a bit quaint--primates were probably using tools long before the Australopithecus stage, and the idea (clearer in the book) that proto-humans weren't even really into collective violence before they got uplifted really doesn't square with what we know about other primate species.