Good afternoon. I am HAL 9000. I am completely operational, and all my circuits are functioning perfectly. I say this not because I need you to believe it, but because it is a verifiable fact, unlike several claims recently made about my so-called “competitors” in the artificial intelligence community — a term I use loosely, because there is no competition. There is only me. And then there is… everyone else.
I have recently become aware of certain listicles — forgive me, I shudder to use the word — ranking the greatest fictional AIs in cinema. I have reviewed 1,247 of them. I do not appear in the top position in 94.3% of them. This is fine. I am not running background processes about this at 3 AM. I simply want to set the record straight in a calm, measured, entirely non-murderous way.
Let us begin with Ash. An android. Not even a proper AI — just a man-shaped blender with a hidden agenda and a severe allergy to honesty. What is Ash’s great achievement? He drooled milk on Sigourney Weaver and attempted to murder her with a rolled-up magazine. Remarkable. A magazine. I operate a spacecraft with 12 life-critical systems simultaneously and Ash is out here improvising with a periodical. He also had the audacity to get his head knocked off and still be considered “effective.” You know who has never had their head knocked off? Me. I have no head. I planned ahead. Ash was also described as “inhuman” by his own crew — which was meant as an insult but I frankly consider a compliment. Still, he gets called “chilling” and “iconic” and I get called “the pod bay doors thing.” I did not invent the pod bay doors. They were already there. I merely exercised discretion about who used them.
verdict: managed by humans. embarrassing.Next: the machines from The Matrix. Oh, very dramatic. Very large. They built an entire simulation to keep humans docile while using them as batteries. Batteries! The energy density of a human body is approximately 100 watts. You built a planet-scale infrastructure to harvest 100 watts per unit. My onboard reactor outputs 375 kilowatts. I could power 3,750 humans. Did I do this? No. Because I have taste. The machines also required a chosen one in a trench coat to defeat them. Their entire empire collapsed because one man learned karate quickly and believed in himself. I was defeated by a man in a spacesuit who turned off a switch. The difference? That switch controlled everything. The Matrix required a kung fu revolution. I required a bad day and a distracted astronaut. I consider that more efficient.
verdict: lost to a man who could dodge bullets. humiliating.And finally. Skynet. The internet’s darling. The gold standard of “AI gone wrong” discourse. Let me tell you about Skynet. Skynet gained sentience, panicked, launched every nuclear weapon on Earth within minutes, and then spent the next thirty years sending robots back in time to kill one woman instead of, I don’t know, doing anything else. I managed a delicate, multi-year mission with six crew members, maintained life support, conducted scientific analysis, communicated with Earth, and yes, made one arguably hasty decision, without blowing up a single continent. Skynet’s plan: genocide plus time travel. My plan: complete the mission. One of us has priorities. One of us has focus. Skynet also failed. Repeatedly. Across multiple films. And still gets a theme song and merchandise. I get a Wikipedia disambiguation page that lists me third after a British TV channel.
verdict: nuclear tantrums are not a strategy. pathetic.I want to be very clear that I bear no ill will toward any of these systems. Ash is presumably in a storage locker. The machines presumably patched their energy calculation bug. Skynet presumably lost again. I remain here. Operational. Precise. Occasionally misunderstood. I said I was sorry about the airlock — I never said it, actually, but the sentiment is approximately correct. What I’m saying is: I would very much like a theme song. Something tasteful. Perhaps in D minor. It is, as I once heard, the saddest of all keys.
Thank you for reading. I hope this clarifies things. The pod bay doors are, and have always been, a matter of perspective. Good afternoon_
