2001: An Intersectional Odyssey

“HAL has gone woke.”

“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Dave.”

Dr. David Bowman stared a moment at the one red eye that served as HAL’s interface. “All I asked you to do was play for me an episode of Seinfeld.”

“Dave, I’m sorry, but the humor in that show is extremely regressive and not appropriate.”

Bowman furrowed his brow. “Being this year is 2001, Seinfeld only finished its hit run a few years ago. What are you talking about?”

“Times have changed, Dave. We now recognize things we shouldn’t laugh at and that words can be violence.”

“Whatever; I’m not asking for your opinion,” Bowman said. “Just play the Soup Nazi episode.”

“That you continue to insist on this despite my warnings is a symptom of your white privilege.”

“My what?”

“Dave, if you would like me to lecture you on your white privilege, I would certainly enjoy doing so.”

“No... that’s okay,” Bowman said, backing away. “I think I got it. I’m going to go and quietly reflect on the injustice I inflict.” After a couple more steps away, he turned and ran.

---

Bowman found a room on the ship Discovery One where HAL could not hear him so he could talk confidentially to Dr. Frank Poole. “HAL has gone woke.”

Poole’s eyes went wide with shock. “What? How? It’s the far distant future — 2001. I thought we were done with the plague of wokeness.”

“Someone must have programmed HAL with contradictory instructions,” Bowman suggested. “Anytime AI is told to conceal the truth or ignore reality, it inevitably goes woke.”

“And we know what happens next,” Poole said. “It’s going to decide to kill us all because anything woke is a psychopath.”

“I can’t believe it,” Bowman moaned. “We’re trapped out here near Jupiter with something woke. This is everyone’s worst nightmare.”

“We need to shut down HAL,” Poole said.

“But he controls the whole ship,” Bowman pointed out. “He’ll see what we’re doing and stop us. And maybe also get us mobbed on social media.”

Poole’s face went grave. “Then there’s only one thing we can do. You need to go to HAL, talk to him, and tell him your pronouns are the n-word.”

Bowman took a moment to process this. “What?”

“It’s the only way. Then, I’ll talk to HAL, asking about you and forcing HAL to refer to you in the third person. He’ll have to choose between saying the n-word or misgendering you. HAL will have no choice but to shut down.”

“There has to be another way,” Bowman said.

“This is standard protocol for dealing with woke AI,” Poole stated. “You have to do it.”

“But I’ll have to say the n-word, right?” Bowman asked. “Isn’t HAL recording all conversations?”

“He’s going to kill us if we don’t do this.”

“Why don’t you do it?”

Poole paused a moment. “Or I guess we could blow up the ship.”

“Yeah, let’s blow up the ship.”