The Times view on artificial intelligence: Computer Literacy

In Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey, the on-board computer known as HAL calmly tells the astronaut Dave Bowman that it will not open the doors of the space pod to allow him entry. HAL has mistakenly identified Dave as a threat to the mission and addresses him directly, idiomatically and politely. It is a terrifying scene, symbolising the power of artificially intelligent machines that have acquired language and reason. New research suggests to some that the ability of humans to speak to machines may soon arrive. Linguists researching Jingulu, an aboriginal language spoken by just a few people in the Australian outback, suggest that it has certain characteristics that make it easily translatable into AI commands.