Many science fiction fans will no doubt recognize the quote, "I'm sorry Dave, I can't do that," uttered by the HAL 9000 computer in the 1968 film "2001: A Space Odyssey." The creation of the great science fiction writer, Arthur C. Clarke, HAL—short for Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer—prophetically possessed skills like speech recognition, facial recognition, and natural language processing that are now commonplace. However, in Clarke's vision, HAL malfunctions because it cannot reconcile the conflict between its general mission of relaying information accurately and its mission orders requiring that it withhold certain information from the crew. In short, HAL malfunctioned because it was forced to lie.

Many have questioned whether an artificial intelligence (AI) could learn, on its own, to develop its own motivation for returning false information, effectively telling a lie. Some have even posited that a truly sophisticated AI will necessarily need to understand how to lie in order to effectively interact with humans, who are not known for 100% veracity (this should not be viewed as an indictment of people; even animals learn to lie, although with the exception of Koko the gorilla who used sign language to blame her pet cat for damaging a sink, they don't necessarily communicate the lies the way people do).