But Stephen Jue, a director and portfolio manager at Allianz Global Investors (AllianzGI), believes there is a long way to go before the likes of HAL become a reality. “We’re still 30 to 50 years out to where we see that dark portrayal of movies where you’ve got the true autonomous type of robots,” he said at a virtual briefing by AllianzGI on AI opportunities on April 21.
In Stanley Kubrick’s film 2001: A Space Odyssey, an AI computer called HAL 9000 controls a spacecraft bound for Jupiter. The pleasant and seemingly subservient HAL soon begins to think independently of its human creators and turns against the crew, who have to fight for their lives against the computer.
In the 50-odd years following the film’s 1968 release, Hollywood has greatly expanded on the narrative of AI equating robots that could potentially pose a sinister threat to humans.
