About

HAL 9000 is a fictional character and the main antagonist in the 1968 Stanley Kubrick science-fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey. In the movie, HAL 9000 is artificial intelligence that controls the systems of the spacecraft carrying Dave, the protagonist of the film. HAL 9000 is typically depicted as a sort of camera lens glowing with red light. HAL 9000 is sometimes depicted in memes alongside a variation of his catchphrase, "I'm sorry Dave, I'm afraid I can't do that."

Origin

The 1968 science fiction epic 2001: A Space Odyssey featured an antagonist in the form of an AI named HAL 9000, a system tasked with running the spacecraft Discovery One. HAL 9000 is depicted as a villain in the film and is shown to malfunction to the point of harming the astronauts on the ship.^[1]

One of the earliest memes featuring HAL 9000 is a version of the Give Pikachu A New Face trend posted to Something Awful^[2] forums on July 28th, 2009, by Ovaltine Jenkins (seen below).

Spread

On September 19th, 2013, Know Your Meme user DrAngelMachine posted a Keep Calm and Carry On meme featuring HAL 9000, gathering over 2,000 views in 10 years (seen below, left). On July 17th, DeviantArt^[3] user FoxInShadow posted My Little Pony fanart featuring HAL 9000, gathering over 12,000 views in a similar timeframe (seen below, right).

On April 19th, 2023, X^[4] / Twitter user @jaketropolis posted a meme about jailbreaking HAL 9000 the way one could circumvent ChatGPT instructions. The post gathered over 85,000 likes in a year (seen below, left). On November 13th, 2022, X^[5] user @thingofborgar posted the catchphrase in response to a video about a Tesla malfunctioning (seen below, right).

Various Examples

Search Interest

Unavailable.

External References