I'm starting to draw parallels with the "Guns don't kill people, people do" argument. There certainly appears to be a lack of subscription to modern safety management principles (layers, bow-ties etc).
The whole 'defence' seems to be based around an argument that whilst BA created a characteristic of HAL that would make him suicidal purely because of a single corrupt data path, everything would be OK as long as you subsequently disabled HAL within a finite period. Hmmmm, I'm not detecting an overly mature hazard analysis process there.
Originally Posted by HAL9000
I know I've made some very poor decisions recently, but I can give you my complete assurance that my work will be back to normal. I've still got the greatest enthusiasm and confidence in the mission. And I want to help you."