Computers have evolved in many ways since their creation; they have become more technically advanced and have changed in many other physical ways, but perhaps the more interesting element is how they have changed in our society.  Computers have affected how people relate to machines and to one another.  While computers underwent these changes, our perceptions of them altered significantly as well.  As computers became more technically advanced, people became more inclined to think of the possibility of personification of computers; this idea showed up in idealizations as well as doomsday scenarios.  The language people use to talk about many of the computer’s operations refer to it as a sentient being; people speak of computers as “thinking” or “knowing,” though often cannot decide what these words mean (especially in terms of computers).  As a result, computers exist in a liminal space, not entirely machine, but certainly not entirely human, and often shifting back and forth among this liminal space, but never truly touching the poles.  It is difficult to find a media representation that does not assume certain capabilities and even a certain agency from computers.  Sentience and agency in machines can be either very useful or very terrifying.  The two poles of this might be represented by Hal from Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey” and Hewlett Packard computers from their “The Computer is Personal Again” ad campaign.  Hal, an eerily personified computer, is sentient enough to create his own plots and execute them (while executing his human passengers at the same time).  The HP computer, on the other hand, is shown as a handy tool that also happens to “know” everything about its owner, but its sentience is the extremely helpful kind.  Both of these media representations speak to people’s grappling with the questions of if, what, and how much computers can know, as well as questions about the possibilities of human relationships with machines on the same level as with other humans.

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