The Revenge of “Hal 9000”;
or Why You Should Always Be Polite to Technology.

Have you ever thought what it would be like to live in the 22nd century? Whatever you think you’re either going to be an optimist or a pessimist. Maybe you’ve read a lot of science fiction and you think we will have mastered how to travel back in time though wormholes. Or maybe you have been reading the newspapers and think that the future will be a dark foreboding place full of military drones and warfare.

Optimists always think that the future is going to be so bright, that sunglasses will be permanently needed. Technology will save us and we will be living a life of luxury. Office work will be a thing of the past, and we will lie around in the sun eating grapes and chatting over cocktails while a robot cleans up around us.

Pessimists on the other hand think that we will be buried under a mountain of misery. That same technology that optimists think will give us a life of luxury will suppress and enslave us in untold horrors. “Hal” from “2001 A space odyssey”, will be monitoring our every move and pushing us into an increasingly darker vision of life.

Everybody knows that the future is hard to predict. Think about this: has anyone thought that Hal, bored by our company and our ever-increasing neurotic demands, may leave us to our own devices. Then there will be no one to serve us cocktails and, at the same time, no one to enslave us.

What on Earth will we do then?