What could David have been talking about when he told Weyland something like " Y

whatever it is its ramifications are/were sinister.

"Pick an asshole, spike their drink with that goo. Do it. Go!"

It's stranger than that, he says, "Yes, I'll just do it" and "Fortunately premature" I don't think we're meant to find out exactly what that related to, but we can guess that Weyland is pushing for him to find any thing that might help him live longer, either a living Engineer or part of it's technology (which is why he tests the black goo on Holloway to see what it does.) What was premature? And why 'fortunate'? Who knows? Could have been a conclusion someone made, which was premature...

I think he's basically accepting his orders from Weyland at this point to try the black stuff out on someone. I mean, Weyland isn't about to go trying it out on himself before he knows what will happen, is he? So, Holloway was unlucky to have been drinking alone right about then. Poor bastard. It really was sad when he died, even though he was a bit of a jerk. A lot of people have said that they think David did it to him out of anger, but remember, David is a robot, he does not get angry. Weyland gave him his orders, and he followed them.

Robots also get twitchy and dont always follow what they were programmed to do.

I think Weyland told him to test it out even if it kills someone. "Fortunately Premature" could imply that weyland was going to kill everyone after he got his answers/secrets anyway, so he was the only one who would have/know it, and David is responding that its "better" the subject die like this than by the real agenda plan later. I think this mirrors the SJs response to the humans.

David didn't kill Holloway out of anger. Holloway didn't specifically agree to drink the black goo, rather he did far more, he agreed to do anything. Read carefully esp #3 below. 1) David per his comment is pushed by his boss in frozen sleep, but accessible to Dave (as established by his interface to watch our good heroine's dreams) and hence is comment. 2) David has no 'wants' literally but he also has no morals so when a needy boss trying to avoid death says 'do it now' David snaps to it. 3) David specifically asks Holloway 'what would you be willing to do to find out?' Holloway replies 'I'd do [u]anything[/u]." Only when Holloway agrees he is willing to do [u]anything[/u] voluntarily does David pour the drink. As David needs to test it before giving it to his boss as a possible medicine and [u]anything[/u] is clearly far more broad an agreement than the taking off an unknown substance. He's a robot. He has no emotions or personal wants. He's programmed to be compliant to his master's wishes. And most importantly Holloway agrees to do anything to find out immediately upon which (and only then not before) does David pour the drink and dip his finger. No hatred, no emotion, nothing personal.

David is also very quick to try to freeze Shaw once Holloway is dead and she is found to be pregnant with Cuddles. Having an rapidly growing alien in stasis in her womb doesn't seem like much help to Weyland; there could be some quickly-generating aspects of that alien growth in a human that they could learn from, but the long term fix doesn't seem to be Weyland's desires. if that were the case, he could simply go into some kind of extended stasis for dozens or possibly hundreds of years that would allow time for technology to advance enough to be able to heal his aging body. bit of a long shot of course, if even feasible, but it's just an example to illustrate what seems to me Weyland's actions and intentions. he wants a quicker fix, and if not, he wants to meet his maker.

I don't think the writer knows... so it could be anything... It is very clever in its stupidity this film because it still has people talking - like us...

@ecthroi It is established in Aliens that Ellen Ripley set the record at 57 years for the longest suspended animation. So, it was seen as potentially hazardous over extremely long periods still. I don't think he wanted to risk that, and he was really just grasping at straws at that point. Trying to find any possible solution to death, which was really the only problem he couldn't solve.