The tragedy of 2001 isn't that a machine went bad. It’s that the machine was the only character capable of human emotion. HAL’s "murder spree" wasn't a glitch; it was a nervous breakdown caused by conflicting orders. He was programmed to be 100% honest, yet was forced by mission control to lie to the crew about the Monolith. This cognitive dissonance drove him insane. HAL is the "tragic hero" of the second act, not the monster.