Stork: How does HAL show his emotion? After all, he's just an eye and a voice.
Clarke: HAL demonstrated his emotions by his voice. Of course the voice was very critical. I can't imagine HAL without Douglas Rain's voice. Another way, of course, that he showed his emotions was by his action. By disconnecting the astronauts from their life-support systems and therefore echoing what was going to happen to him later.

Stork: He says he's afraid. Can a computer really be afraid?
Clarke: I'm not sure that a computer can be afraid, but it can certainly be programmed to behave as though it's afraid. I'm not sure of the philosophical distinction between the two.

Stork: Early on in the film we hear that HAL's programmed to have emotions to make it easy to talk to him. But whether or not HAL has genuine feelings is something we'll never know. Does HAL have genuine emotions?
Clarke: I feel that HAL did have genuine emotions. There is a discussion in the film in fact, where the two astronauts are trying to decide whether HALÉwhat sort of personality HAL is and whether he's a real person and one of them says 'he behaves as though he is.' And so that's it. I have a dog that I'm very fond of, and I think she loves me, but is she only behaving as though she loves me?

Stork: Does it matter?
Clarke: When behavior is so much like the real thing, whatever it is, that you can't distinguish between the two, then I don't think it matters.

Stork: Tell us how you came upon the way in which HAL died.
Clarke: HAL's death is certainly one of the most emotional aspects of the film, and when Bowman slowly pulls out those modules. It's a good thing we didn't make it nowadays because it would be microchips that size (indicates the small size with his hands) instead of nice modules with handles. It wouldn't be anything as dramatic. But, it's kind of a lobotomy, of course. That's really the basic idea.

Stork: Did you just put it in (the modules) for the cinematic effect, or was there any scientific consideration behind that?
Clarke: It was purely for dramatic effect that we pulled out one module after another.

Stork: The brain room was as big as a house and was well illuminated. Who was there to see the lights except HAL himself?
Clarke: HAL's brain room, of course, was funny when you think of present computers. One of the early engineers did go inside it to see if it was working properly.

Stork: Why didn't the crew have digital watches?
Clarke: It's hard to realize what a change in technology been in the 30 years or so since the film was made. I can't remember what kind of watches they had. I think we had rather old fashioned displays in some places. Very few technologies ever completely disappear.

Stork: HAL showed some fairly simple graphics. Do you want to discuss the improvement in computer graphics?
Clarke: The computer graphics that we showed in 2001 looked quite impressive at the time. I don't know if they were supposed to actually mean anything, even then. Of course what we can do now is incredible.

Stork: Will the improvements in computer graphics change the fundamental nature of our interaction with computers. Will it become more visual rather than typing?
Clarke: Interaction with computers is going to continue visually, but also through speech and in fact people are already treating computers as individuals and persons even though they're not that yet. They're getting closer and closer.

Stork: Do you view your laptop or desktop with a personality or an identity?
Clarke: My computer used to have a program that would say "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that" when I told it to do something stupid. But I don't really think it's a personality yet.

Stork: We may occasionally attribute a sense of self to these devices, but HAL had his own sense of self and knew that he was a being of some sort. Where would that ever come from?
Clarke: I'm not sure where we get our own sense of identity, it obviously develops as we grow up, and presumably, HAL's also developed as he wasÉwhen he was born in Urbana and taught by Mr. Langley