Background History
HAL is an artificial intelligence, on-board computer of the spaceship Discovery featured in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey. HAL is usually represented only as his television camera ‘eyes’ that can be seen throughout the spaceship.

Dementia
Over the course of the journey to Jupiter HAL’s consciousness degrades. As is often seen in dementia recent memory goes first, leaving longer-term memory intact. HAL can be seen to regurgitate material that was programmed into him early in his memory, including announcing the date he became operational, or his birthday, losing all sense of the current date. Eventually HAL’s logic is completely gone, he begins singing “Daisy, Daisy, Give me your answer do ...” something clearly learnt in early infancy and not at all relevant to the Activities of Daily Living for a spaceship computer. As such, this is clearly a progressive decline in cognitive function due to damage to his ‘brain’ beyond what might be expected from normal aging. NICE guidelines would not favour using any anti-dementia drugs as his MMSE score is <12 and he doesn’t have any cholinesterase to inhibit.

Cluster B Personality Disorder
Bringing together dissocial PD (known to the Americans as antisocial personality disorder) narcissistic PD and emotionally unstable PD this is a collection of psychiatric conditions characterised by a common disregard for social rules and cultural norms. An individual will display impulsive behaviour and indifference to the rights and feelings of others. At the same time they will also continue to hold a belief that they have a special purpose and the right to judge others. As documented in the Space Logs while some of his passengers were outside HAL was seen to kill three hibernating scientists by deactivating their life-support systems. When asked why, HAL was heard to assert that the mission is ‘too important’ to allow anyone to jeopardise it. There is no cure for personality disorder but it would be prudent to suggest that HAL is no longer left to monitor the life-support systems on the ship.

Red Eye
A minor problem given that HAL is, clinically speaking, demented and dissocial. However, ‘red eye’ or ‘hyperaemia of the superficial blood vessels of the conjunctiva or sclera, caused by diseases or disorders of these structures or adjacent structures that may affect them directly or indirectly’ is not something to be ignored. As a spaceship computer, HAL would need full visual acuity and no photosensitivity. Normally a simple topical antibiotic would clear this up. It should be noted that cannabis is known to cause conjunctival reddening as well as psychosis and mood alteration. Before anything else it would be worth asking HAL for a sample for a urine drug screen. Or at least some oil.

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