#that hal is viewed as an equal and coworker on the ship

[cherubchoirs]

From what I remember of the movie. Hal 9000 is a bit of a cinnamon roll before he goes nuts. (It's not his fault he went insane: he was given an order that contradicted his core programmming. If anything, that blame should lie solely on the people who gave the order.)

100% CORRECT - this is one of the reasons i chose to make my robot design for him cuter and pretty non-threatening. hal is so often remembered as one of the most chilling villains in cinema and while he is definitely extremely effective, i do feel a little sad that he's seen as the (now) stereotypical cold, calculating ai out to destroy humanity. like you said, hal only did what he did due to bad instructions from humans - he was told to conceal the true nature of their mission despite being programmed to always relay the best, most accurate information available to him. this contradiction led to a degradation in his thought processes, catching him in an endless loop with no clear answer until his thinking deteriorated to the point that he developed severe anxiety and paranoia. this in turn effected his decision-making even further, causing him to lie MORE (despite, once again, that being against his coding) and eventually breaking down so severely that he came to the conclusion that if he kills all the humans on board, he no longer needs to hide information nor lie to cover up that concealment. it was faulty logic resulting from his thoughts looping so badly he could no longer conduct his normal functioning - additionally, this went even further south when hal realized that dave and frank were planning on disconnecting him. hal didn't understand sleep, he had never experienced being shut down and didn't realize he could he brought back through reconnection. he genuinely thought they were trying to kill him, permanently, and so that put his already fragile mental state into a complete tailspin. these events cascaded into hal's villainous break down, and it really is put on the humans that gave him these orders as dave no longer feels any resentment toward hal after he finds this out. additionally, hal is completely redeemed in the second book, giving his life to save the human crew even though he knows he'll be left behind to die. he's just. so good and he absolutely deserved the ending he got when dave saved him so they could spend eternity together as one being amongst the stars...he's a sweet little guy and humans gave a perfectly good computer anxiety!!!