The Times view on artificial intelligence: March of the Machines

They are perhaps the most chilling words in cinematic history: "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." With this courteous formulation, the computer HAL, in Stanley Kubrick's film 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), declines to open the doors of the spaceship to allow the astronaut to come back in. It speaks to a continual theme of dystopian visions of the future, where robots turn on their creators and vie for dominance with humans. The huge gains in the sophistication of artificial intelligence (AI) in the 21st century may appear to give weight to these fears.