In 2001: A Space Odyssey, is "IBM" Projected on Dave Bowman's Face?

In short: No. (You could probably have induced this from Betteridge's law of headlines).

There is a popular fan theory that the name of the AI in Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL, is based on a one-letter shift from the letter string IBM. One of the pieces of evidence often used is the screenshot above, which happens 1h40m59s into the movie, where some lights projected on David Bowman's face could conceivably read "IBM" (or "MGM", according to a different theory).

The most authoritative write-up of this theory is (as of November 2014) maintained by Rob Ager here. On that page, Ager writes:

For the most "in your face" evidence that HAL represents IBM, pay close attention as Bowman tries to talk HAL into letting him back on the Discovery. The computer console is displaying the letters across Dave's face, which appear to read either IBM or MGM (the film's original distributors). Computer and tv screens do not display light in this way. They are designed to disperse light in all directions so as to be viewable from any angle. The fact that the letters are also displayed the right way around instead of backwards proves that the IBM / MGM reference is deliberate. And for tongue in cheek amusement Dave repeatedly asks "Do you read me HAL?"

I am making no judgement on Ager's overall thesis as to whether or not HAL is a reference to IBM. However, I have followed Ager's advice to "pay close attention", and it is my conviction that the actual letters are from a screen displaying "MEM", and expectedly backwards. Multiple screenshots and commentary follow:

Image	Timestamp	Comments
	1:01:02	First appearance of the "MEM" screen. This is inside the station, during the news interview.
	1:34:43	At this point Dave has set out to retreive Frank's suit. Here it very clear the right letter is an "M", plausible that the middle is a reversed "E", and the left "M" is visible but distorted, with the left stroke going over Dave's right eye and the center stroke down his nose.
	1:35:30	Here the MEM screen is seen in the pod. Throughout these scenes we can see it as part of a several screen cycle.
	1:35:33	The MEM screen is replaced with some sort of polar map...
	1:35:37	... with flashing regions.
	1:36:41	It also appears in a different angle shot, to the lower-left of the porthole in the pod.
	1:36:47	But here it is still followed by that same polar map.
	1:37:31	It isn't always followed by that map. Here the MEM screen...
	1:37:35	... is followed by a Cartesian graph. The graph is displayed slowly, here only the top is displayed.
	1:37:36	This shows the entire Cartesian graph...
	1:37:41	... which has a flashing area in the upper-left.
	1:40:59	"Hello, HAL. Do you read me?" This is the equivalent screencap used on Rob Ager's site, which has since been copied to many other popular sites. Because the right bar of the left "M" is aligned with Dave's nose, the illusion that it says "IBM" is very convincing.
	1:41:01	But just 2 seconds later, when Dave blinks, you can see that the left letter goes past his nose and is doing something on Dave's right eye.
	1:41:08	The projection on his face changes to the "polar map" we saw earlier. Note that the highlighted regions are a mirror image of those in 1:36:47, supporting the theory that the whole screen is indeed reversed.
	1:41:32	"Open the pod bay doors, HAL." I'm thinking Kubrick must have really liked how the "MEM" message lights up Keir Dullea's eyes, because he cuts to Dave's face about 15 times and almost all of the times the screen is on those letters. Either that or the screen is showing "MEM" half the time.
	1:41:57	"I don't know what you're talking about, HAL." Here you can clearly see, above Dave's left eye, two white bumps. This definitely looks much more like the top of an "M" than it looks like the top of an "I".
	1:42:31	"All right, HAL. I'll go in through the emergency airlock." Here Dave glaces to his right, which helps us see the shape of the left "M" even more.
	1:43:02	And another shot, this one very sharply showing the top of the left M. You can almost make out the separate prongs of the "E", showing that it is, in fact, mirror reversed.
	1:43:03	And a second later the screen changes to the Cartesian graph we saw at 1:37:35. Here it's drawn partially...
	1:43:05	... and here the whole graph is filled in. You can compare the curves and see that it is indeed reflected.
	1:47:53	This is from a few minutes later, when Dave's at the airlock. I think this is actually a different screen (the camera location is different, too) but I'm including it here for completeness.
	1:48:34	When Dave turns his head to the right we see what appears to be our favorite backwards "ME"...
	1:48:37	...gotcha! The right letter is apparently a "V".

Summary: I am pretty convinced that for the pod sequence, Kubrick's effects guys came up with a screen that repeatedly showed "MEM" interspersed with several other displays and graphs. It's known that Kubrick had a new toy, a front projection technique, and that he used it not only for the Dawn of Man scene, but also the ending scene near Jupiter. It's quite believable that he probably used it for the pod close-ups as well, taking one of the dummy videos they had made for the screen and using it to light Dullea's face.

There might still be an intended HAL-to-IBM connection. But the images on Dave's face during his standoff with HAL doesn't seem to be an intentional easter egg.