Humanity vs. technology. Science fiction offers particular opportunities to explore anxieties about technology. 2001: A Space Odyssey provides a masterful example. In the prehistory sequence, the bone club, an instrument for killing, appears as the first major technological breakthrough of our species. In the future, much of the human interaction we see has been reduced to long-distance communication through viewscreens, and a spaceship's intelligent computer attempts to murder its human crewmates. Finally, a god-like alien intelligence appears not as feeling and anthropomorphic, but as a cold, black monolith, as efficient and inscrutable as any machine