The notion of computers as visual things is probably something that I viscerally absorbed from 2001. Because at the time when 2001 came out, computers were absolutely not visual things. In the first computer I used, its only form of IO [input/ output] was a paper tape reader and punch and a tele-printer. So the concept of things on screens and flashing 3D things and so on was absolutely distant from the actual experience of computers.

Given that I’ve been involved in building a bunch of the technology that will lead us to HAL-like things, to what extent is fact following fiction, so to speak? I think the answer is I don’t really know.