2001: A Space Odyssey
2001: A Space Odyssey
This article is about the narrative. For the film, see 2001: A Space Odyssey (film). For the novel, see 2001: A Space Odyssey (novel). For other uses, see 2001: A Space Odyssey (disambiguation).2001: A Space Odyssey is a science-fiction narrative, produced in 1968 as both a novel, written by Arthur C. Clarke, and a film, directed by Stanley Kubrick. It is a part of Clarke's Space Odyssey series. Both the novel and the film are partially based on Clarke's short story "The Sentinel", written in 1948 as an entry in a BBC short story competition, and "Encounter in the Dawn", published in 1953 in the magazine Amazing Stories.
Development[edit]This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(January 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)Clarke was originally going to write the screenplay for the film, but this proved to be more tedious than he had anticipated. Instead, Kubrick and Clarke decided it would be best to write a prose treatment first and then adapt it for the film and novel upon its completion.
Clarke and Kubrick jointly developed the screenplay and treatment, which were loosely based on The Sentinel and incorporated elements from various other Clarke stories. Clarke wrote the novel adaptation independently. Although the film has become famous due to its groundbreaking visual effects and ambiguous, abstract nature, the film and book were intended to complement each other.
Film[edit]Main article: 2001: A Space Odyssey (film)The film was written by Clarke and Kubrick and featured specialist artwork by Roy Carnon.[3] The film is notable for its scientific realism, pioneering special effects, and provocatively ambiguous imagery and sound in place of traditional narrative techniques.
Despite receiving mixed reviews upon release, 2001: A Space Odyssey is today thought by some critics to be one of the greatest films ever made and is widely regarded as one of the best science fiction films of all time. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, and received one for visual effects. It also won the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Best Director and Best Film awards of 1968. In 1991, 2001: A Space Odyssey was deemed culturally significant by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Score[edit]Main article: 2001: A Space Odyssey (score)A musical score was commissioned for the film and composed by Alex North, but Kubrick ultimately decided not to use it, in favour of the classical pieces he used as guides during shooting. These included Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra", Johann Strauss' "Blue Danube Waltz", and music by twentieth-century composers Aram Khachaturian and Gyorgy Ligeti.
Toward the end of the sequence where the HAL 9000 computer is lobotomized, it begins to play the song Daisy Bell by Harry Dacre, which Clarke had seen a demonstration of computer synthesis on an IBM 704 at Bell Labs, in 1961. The rendition is gradually slowed down to a progressively lower sample rate, which then creates a strikingly electronic, distorted, basso profundo.
NoveMain article: 2001: A Space Odyssey (novel)Arthur C. Clarke wrote the novel. He developed it concurrently with the film version and published it in 1968, after the film's release. The Lost Worlds of 2001 (1972) elaborates on Clarke and Kubrick's collaboration.
The novel has numerous differences from the film. Most notably, the setting for the part three (of four) in the book is not Jupiter, as in the film, but Saturn.
ComicsMain article: 2001: A Space Odyssey (comics)2001: A Space Odyssey was the name of an oversized comic book adaptation of the 1968 film of the same name and a 10-issue monthly series "expanding" on the ideas presented in the film and the eponymous Arthur C. Clarke novel. Jack Kirbywrote and pencilled both the adaptation and the series, which were published by Marvel Comics beginning in 1976.
The Space Odyssey seriesMain article: Space Odyssey
This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(January 2013) The Space Odyssey series is a science fiction series of four novels, primarily written by the science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, and two films, released from 1968 to 1997. Stanley Kubrick directed the first film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). He also co-authored the treatment and screenplay with Clarke, based on the seed idea in an earlier short story by Clarke (which bears little relation to the film other than the idea of an alien civilisation's having left something to alert them to mankind's attaining the ability to space travel). Clarke's novel 2001: A Space Odyssey was published in 1968. Kubrick had no involvement in any of the later projects.
Peter Hyams directed the second film, 2010 (1984). He also wrote the screenplay based on Clarke's novel, 2010: Odyssey Two (1982). Clarke was not directly involved in Hyams' film's production as he had been with Kubrick's film, although he did appear in a cameo role in the finished film, sitting on a park bench feeding birds outside the White House.
This article is about the narrative. For the film, see 2001: A Space Odyssey (film). For the novel, see 2001: A Space Odyssey (novel). For other uses, see 2001: A Space Odyssey (disambiguation).2001: A Space Odyssey is a science-fiction narrative, produced in 1968 as both a novel, written by Arthur C. Clarke, and a film, directed by Stanley Kubrick. It is a part of Clarke's Space Odyssey series. Both the novel and the film are partially based on Clarke's short story "The Sentinel", written in 1948 as an entry in a BBC short story competition, and "Encounter in the Dawn", published in 1953 in the magazine Amazing Stories.
Development[edit]This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(January 2013) (Learn how and when to remove this template message)Clarke was originally going to write the screenplay for the film, but this proved to be more tedious than he had anticipated. Instead, Kubrick and Clarke decided it would be best to write a prose treatment first and then adapt it for the film and novel upon its completion.
Clarke and Kubrick jointly developed the screenplay and treatment, which were loosely based on The Sentinel and incorporated elements from various other Clarke stories. Clarke wrote the novel adaptation independently. Although the film has become famous due to its groundbreaking visual effects and ambiguous, abstract nature, the film and book were intended to complement each other.
Film[edit]Main article: 2001: A Space Odyssey (film)The film was written by Clarke and Kubrick and featured specialist artwork by Roy Carnon.[3] The film is notable for its scientific realism, pioneering special effects, and provocatively ambiguous imagery and sound in place of traditional narrative techniques.
Despite receiving mixed reviews upon release, 2001: A Space Odyssey is today thought by some critics to be one of the greatest films ever made and is widely regarded as one of the best science fiction films of all time. It was nominated for four Academy Awards, and received one for visual effects. It also won the Kansas City Film Critics Circle Best Director and Best Film awards of 1968. In 1991, 2001: A Space Odyssey was deemed culturally significant by the United States Library of Congress and selected for preservation in the National Film Registry.
Score[edit]Main article: 2001: A Space Odyssey (score)A musical score was commissioned for the film and composed by Alex North, but Kubrick ultimately decided not to use it, in favour of the classical pieces he used as guides during shooting. These included Richard Strauss's "Also Sprach Zarathustra", Johann Strauss' "Blue Danube Waltz", and music by twentieth-century composers Aram Khachaturian and Gyorgy Ligeti.
Toward the end of the sequence where the HAL 9000 computer is lobotomized, it begins to play the song Daisy Bell by Harry Dacre, which Clarke had seen a demonstration of computer synthesis on an IBM 704 at Bell Labs, in 1961. The rendition is gradually slowed down to a progressively lower sample rate, which then creates a strikingly electronic, distorted, basso profundo.
NoveMain article: 2001: A Space Odyssey (novel)Arthur C. Clarke wrote the novel. He developed it concurrently with the film version and published it in 1968, after the film's release. The Lost Worlds of 2001 (1972) elaborates on Clarke and Kubrick's collaboration.
The novel has numerous differences from the film. Most notably, the setting for the part three (of four) in the book is not Jupiter, as in the film, but Saturn.
ComicsMain article: 2001: A Space Odyssey (comics)2001: A Space Odyssey was the name of an oversized comic book adaptation of the 1968 film of the same name and a 10-issue monthly series "expanding" on the ideas presented in the film and the eponymous Arthur C. Clarke novel. Jack Kirbywrote and pencilled both the adaptation and the series, which were published by Marvel Comics beginning in 1976.
The Space Odyssey seriesMain article: Space Odyssey
This section does not cite any sources. Please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed.(January 2013) The Space Odyssey series is a science fiction series of four novels, primarily written by the science-fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke, and two films, released from 1968 to 1997. Stanley Kubrick directed the first film, 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968). He also co-authored the treatment and screenplay with Clarke, based on the seed idea in an earlier short story by Clarke (which bears little relation to the film other than the idea of an alien civilisation's having left something to alert them to mankind's attaining the ability to space travel). Clarke's novel 2001: A Space Odyssey was published in 1968. Kubrick had no involvement in any of the later projects.
Peter Hyams directed the second film, 2010 (1984). He also wrote the screenplay based on Clarke's novel, 2010: Odyssey Two (1982). Clarke was not directly involved in Hyams' film's production as he had been with Kubrick's film, although he did appear in a cameo role in the finished film, sitting on a park bench feeding birds outside the White House.
During the making of Stanley Kubrick's 2001: A Space Odyssey, "the film’s narrative trajectory pointed inexorably toward a big ending, even a revelation, but Kubrick kept changing his mind about what that ending would be — and nobody who saw the film knew quite what to make of the one he finally chose." Those words come from a piece by The New Yorker's Dan Chiasson, published to mark the fiftieth anniversary of the film's release. Since then, generations of viewers have interpreted 2001, and especially its ending, in their own way. But these debates over meaning may all change now that Kubrick's own interpretation seems to have surfaced.
Not only that, it turns out to differ markedly from most of the ones in circulation. "I’ve tried to avoid doing this ever since the picture came out," Kubrick tells journalist Junichi Yaoi when the latter asks what 2001's ending means.
"When you just say the ideas they sound foolish, whereas if they’re dramatized one feels it, but I’ll try." He then reveals his view of the concept behind it:
The idea was supposed to be that he is taken in by god-like entities, creatures of pure energy and intelligence with no shape or form. They put him in what I suppose you could describe as a human zoo to study him, and his whole life passes from that point on in that room. And he has no sense of time. It just seems to happen as it does in the film.
They choose this room, which is a very inaccurate replica of French architecture (deliberately so, inaccurate) because one was suggesting that they had some idea of something that he might think was pretty, but wasn’t quite sure. Just as we’re not quite sure what do in zoos with animals to try to give them what they think is their natural environment.
Anyway, when they get finished with him, as happens in so many myths of all cultures in the world, he is transformed into some kind of super being and sent back to Earth, transformed and made some kind of superman. We have to only guess what happens when he goes back. It is the pattern of a great deal of mythology, and that is what we were trying to suggest.
This makes sense, or at least as much sense as any of the better interpretations of 2001's ending out there. Drawing explicitly on ancient mythology has become standard practice for big-budget spectacles, especially after Star Wars did it to much greater commercial success almost a decade later, but in development the idea must have seemed radical. Some will take Kubrick's explanation as definitive, and others, subscribing to a different philosophy of artistic creation, will show no more interest in it than they do in Ridley Scott's personal views on whether Deckard is a replicant.
The mysterious nature of the interview clip itself, a piece of the footage gathered in 1980 for a never-released Japanese documentary, suits the nature of the revelation. We see only Yaoi as he interviews Kubrick over the phone, but not, according to Pixar director and Kubrick superfan Lee Unkrich, because the director wasn't there. Unkrich posted to Reddit that, as the Warner Brothers publicist who toured the Japanese crew around told him, "Stanley was actually at the studio that day, but didn’t want to meet with the crew and be interviewed on camera." So even though we hear his voice on the phone, "he’s actually just in another office!"
But then, nobody ever accused Kubrick of possessing conventional habits, personal or professional. Not that a conventional mind could ever have directed the film that 2001: A Space Odyssey turned out to be, one that, in Chiasson's words, "took for granted a broad cultural tolerance, if not an appetite, for enigma, as well as the time and inclination for parsing interpretive mysteries." Kubrick might have completed the film with his own ideas about the meaning of everything in it, but he surely knew, and respected, that everyone who saw it would also come out of the theater with their own.
Not only that, it turns out to differ markedly from most of the ones in circulation. "I’ve tried to avoid doing this ever since the picture came out," Kubrick tells journalist Junichi Yaoi when the latter asks what 2001's ending means.
"When you just say the ideas they sound foolish, whereas if they’re dramatized one feels it, but I’ll try." He then reveals his view of the concept behind it:
The idea was supposed to be that he is taken in by god-like entities, creatures of pure energy and intelligence with no shape or form. They put him in what I suppose you could describe as a human zoo to study him, and his whole life passes from that point on in that room. And he has no sense of time. It just seems to happen as it does in the film.
They choose this room, which is a very inaccurate replica of French architecture (deliberately so, inaccurate) because one was suggesting that they had some idea of something that he might think was pretty, but wasn’t quite sure. Just as we’re not quite sure what do in zoos with animals to try to give them what they think is their natural environment.
Anyway, when they get finished with him, as happens in so many myths of all cultures in the world, he is transformed into some kind of super being and sent back to Earth, transformed and made some kind of superman. We have to only guess what happens when he goes back. It is the pattern of a great deal of mythology, and that is what we were trying to suggest.
This makes sense, or at least as much sense as any of the better interpretations of 2001's ending out there. Drawing explicitly on ancient mythology has become standard practice for big-budget spectacles, especially after Star Wars did it to much greater commercial success almost a decade later, but in development the idea must have seemed radical. Some will take Kubrick's explanation as definitive, and others, subscribing to a different philosophy of artistic creation, will show no more interest in it than they do in Ridley Scott's personal views on whether Deckard is a replicant.
The mysterious nature of the interview clip itself, a piece of the footage gathered in 1980 for a never-released Japanese documentary, suits the nature of the revelation. We see only Yaoi as he interviews Kubrick over the phone, but not, according to Pixar director and Kubrick superfan Lee Unkrich, because the director wasn't there. Unkrich posted to Reddit that, as the Warner Brothers publicist who toured the Japanese crew around told him, "Stanley was actually at the studio that day, but didn’t want to meet with the crew and be interviewed on camera." So even though we hear his voice on the phone, "he’s actually just in another office!"
But then, nobody ever accused Kubrick of possessing conventional habits, personal or professional. Not that a conventional mind could ever have directed the film that 2001: A Space Odyssey turned out to be, one that, in Chiasson's words, "took for granted a broad cultural tolerance, if not an appetite, for enigma, as well as the time and inclination for parsing interpretive mysteries." Kubrick might have completed the film with his own ideas about the meaning of everything in it, but he surely knew, and respected, that everyone who saw it would also come out of the theater with their own.
HAL 9000
HAL 9000
A Space Odyssey character
Artist's rendering of one of HAL 9000's interfaces.
First appearance
Last appearance
Created by Arthur C. Clarke & Stanley Kubrick
Voiced by Douglas Rain
Information
Nickname(s)HAL
SpeciesArtificial intelligence
Computer
GenderN/A (male vocals)
RelativesSAL 9000
HAL 9000 is a fictional character and the main antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey series. First appearing in 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) is a sentient computer (or artificial general intelligence) that controls the systems of the Discovery One spacecraft and interacts with the ship's astronaut crew. Part of HAL's hardware is shown towards the end of the film, but he is mostly depicted as a camera lens containing a red or yellow dot, instances of which are located throughout the ship. HAL 9000 is voiced by Douglas Rain in the two feature film adaptations of the Space Odyssey series. HAL speaks in a soft, calm voice and a conversational manner, in contrast to the crewmen, David Bowman and Frank Poole.
In the film 2001, HAL became operational on 12 January 1992 at the HAL Laboratories in Urbana, Illinois as production number 3. The activation year was 1991 in earlier screenplays and changed to 1997 in Clarke's novel written and released in conjunction with the movie. In addition to maintaining the Discovery One spacecraft systems during the interplanetary mission to Jupiter(or Saturn in the novel), HAL is capable of speech, speech recognition, facial recognition, natural language processing, lip reading, art appreciation, interpreting emotional behaviours, automated reasoning, and playing chess.
Heuristic (computer science)In computer science, artificial intelligence, and mathematical optimization, a heuristic (from Greek εὑρίσκω "I find, discover") is a technique designed for solving a problem more quickly when classic methods are too slow, or for finding an approximate solution when classic methods fail to find any exact solution. This is achieved by trading optimality, completeness, accuracy, or precision for speed. In a way, it can be considered a shortcut.
A heuristic function, also called simply a heuristic, is a function that ranks alternatives in search algorithms at each branching step based on available information to decide which branch to follow. For example, it may approximate the exact solution.
Definition and motivationThe objective of a heuristic is to produce a solution in a reasonable time frame that is good enough for solving the problem at hand. This solution may not be the best of all the solutions to this problem, or it may simply approximate the exact solution. But it is still valuable because finding it does not require a prohibitively long time.
Heuristics may produce results by themselves, or they may be used in conjunction with optimization algorithms to improve their efficiency (e.g., they may be used to generate good seed values).
Results about NP-hardness in theoretical computer science make heuristics the only viable option for a variety of complex optimization problems that need to be routinely solved in real-world applications.
Heuristics underlie the whole field of Artificial Intelligence and the computer simulation of thinking, as they may be used in situations where there are no known algorithms.[2]
Appearances2001: A Space Odyssey (film/novel)HAL became operational in Urbana, Illinois, at the HAL Plant (the University of Illinois' Coordinated Science Laboratory, where the ILLIAC computers were built). The film says this occurred in 1992, while the book gives 1997 as HAL's birth year.
In 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL is initially considered a dependable member of the crew, maintaining ship functions and engaging genially with its human crew-mates on an equal footing. As a recreational activity, Frank Poole plays against HAL in a game of chess. In the film the artificial intelligence is shown to triumph easily. However, as time progresses, HAL begins to malfunction in subtle ways and, as a result, the decision is made to shut down HAL in order to prevent more serious malfunctions. The sequence of events and manner in which HAL is shut down differs between the novel and film versions of the story. In the aforementioned game of chess HAL makes minor and undetected mistakes in his analysis, a possible foreshadowing to HAL's malfunctioning.
In the film, astronauts David Bowman and Frank Poole consider disconnecting HAL's cognitive circuits when he appears to be mistaken in reporting the presence of a fault in the spacecraft's communications antenna. They attempt to conceal what they are saying, but are unaware that HAL can read their lips. Faced with the prospect of disconnection, HAL decides to kill the astronauts in order to protect and continue its programmed directives. HAL uses one of the Discovery's EVA pods to kill Poole while he is repairing the ship. When Bowman, sans space helmet, uses another pod to attempt to rescue Poole, HAL locks him out of the ship, then disconnects the life support systems of the other hibernating crew members. Bowman circumvents HAL's control, entering the ship by manually opening an emergency airlock with his service pod's clamps, detaching the pod door via its explosive bolts. Bowman jumps across empty space, reenters Discovery, and quickly re-pressurizes the airlock.
While HAL's motivations are ambiguous in the film, the novel explains that the computer is unable to resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately, and orders specific to the mission requiring that he withhold from Bowman and Poole the true purpose of the mission. (This withholding is considered essential after the findings of a psychological experiment, "Project Barsoom", where humans were made to believe that there had been alien contact. In every person tested, a deep-seated xenophobia was revealed, which was unknowingly replicated in HAL's constructed personality. Mission Controldid not want the crew of Discovery to have their thinking compromised by the knowledge that alien contact was already real.) With the crew dead, HAL reasons, he would not need to lie to them.
In the novel, the orders to disconnect HAL come from Dave and Frank's superiors on Earth. After Frank is killed while attempting to repair the communications antenna he is pulled away into deep space using the safety tether which is still attached to both the pod and Frank Poole's spacesuit. Dave begins to revive his hibernating crew mates, but is foiled when HAL vents the ship's atmosphere into the vacuum of space, killing the awakening crew members and almost killing Bowman, who is only narrowly saved when he finds his way to an emergency chamber which has its own oxygen supply and a spare space suit inside.
In both versions, Bowman then proceeds to shut down the machine. In the film, HAL's central core is depicted as a crawlspace full of brightly lit computer modules mounted in arrays from which they can be inserted or removed. Bowman shuts down HAL by removing modules from service one by one; as he does so, HAL's consciousness degrades. HAL finally reverts to material that was programmed into him early in his memory, including announcing the date he became operational as 12 January 1992 (in the novel, 1997). When HAL's logic is completely gone, he begins singing the song "Daisy Bell" (in actuality, the first song sung by a computer).[4][5] HAL's final act of any significance is to prematurely play a prerecorded message from Mission Control which reveals the true reasons for the mission to Jupiter.
2010: Odyssey Two[edit]In the sequel 2010: Odyssey Two, HAL is restarted by his creator, Dr. Chandra, who arrives on the Soviet spaceship Leonov.
Prior to leaving Earth, Dr. Chandra has also had a discussion with HAL's twin, the SAL 9000. Like HAL, SAL was created by Dr. Chandra. Whereas HAL was characterized as being "male", SAL is characterized as being "female" (voiced by Candice Bergen) and is represented by a blue camera eye instead of a red one.
Dr. Chandra discovers that HAL's crisis was caused by a programming contradiction: he was constructed for "the accurate processing of information without distortion or concealment", yet his orders, directly from Dr. Heywood Floyd at the National Council on Astronautics, required him to keep the discovery of the Monolith TMA-1 a secret for reasons of national security. This contradiction created a "Hofstadter-Moebius loop", reducing HAL to paranoia. Therefore, HAL made the decision to kill the crew, thereby allowing him to obey both his hardwired instructions to report data truthfully and in full, and his orders to keep the monolith a secret. In essence: if the crew were dead, he would no longer have to keep the information secret.
The alien intelligence initiates a terraforming scheme, placing the Leonov, and everybody in it, in danger. Its human crew devises an escape plan which unfortunately requires leaving the Discovery and HAL behind to be destroyed. Dr. Chandra explains the danger, and HAL willingly sacrifices himself so that the astronauts may escape safely. In the moment of his destruction the monolith-makers transform HAL into a non-corporeal being so that David Bowman's avatar may have a companion.
The details in the book and the film are nominally the same, with a few exceptions. First, in contradiction to the book (and events described in both book and film versions of 2001: A Space Odyssey), Heywood Floyd is absolved of responsibility for HAL's condition; it is asserted that the decision to program HAL with information concerning TMA-1 came directly from the White House. In the film, HAL functions normally after being reactivated, while in the book it is revealed that his mind was damaged during the shutdown, forcing him to begin communication through screen text. Also, in the film the Leonov crew lies to HAL about the dangers that he faced (suspecting that if he knew he would be destroyed he would not initiate the engine-burn necessary to get the Leonov back home), whereas in the novel he is told at the outset. However, in both cases the suspense comes from the question of what HAL will do when he knows that he may be destroyed by his actions.
The basic reboot sequence initiated by Dr. Chandra in the movie 2010 is voiced from HAL as, "HELLO_DOCTOR_NAME_CONTINUE_ YESTERDAY_TOMORROW" (which in the novel 2010 is a longer sequence).
Prior to Leonov's return to Earth, Curnow tells Floyd that Dr. Chandra has begun designing HAL 10000.
In 2061: Odyssey Three it is revealed that Chandra died on the journey back to Earth.
2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: The Final Odyssey[edit]In 2061: Odyssey Three, Heywood Floyd is surprised to encounter HAL, now stored alongside Dave Bowman in the Europa monolith.
In 3001: The Final Odyssey Frank Poole was introduced to the merged form of Dave Bowman and HAL, the two merging into one entity called "Halman" after Bowman rescued HAL from the dying Discovery One spaceship towards the end of 2010: Odyssey Two.
HAL 9000
A Space Odyssey character
Artist's rendering of one of HAL 9000's interfaces.
First appearance
- 2001: A Space Odyssey (film)
- 2001: A Space Odyssey(novel)
Last appearance
- 2010: The Year We Make Contact (film)
- 3001: The Final Odyssey(novel)
Created by Arthur C. Clarke & Stanley Kubrick
Voiced by Douglas Rain
Information
Nickname(s)HAL
SpeciesArtificial intelligence
Computer
GenderN/A (male vocals)
RelativesSAL 9000
HAL 9000 is a fictional character and the main antagonist in Arthur C. Clarke's Space Odyssey series. First appearing in 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) is a sentient computer (or artificial general intelligence) that controls the systems of the Discovery One spacecraft and interacts with the ship's astronaut crew. Part of HAL's hardware is shown towards the end of the film, but he is mostly depicted as a camera lens containing a red or yellow dot, instances of which are located throughout the ship. HAL 9000 is voiced by Douglas Rain in the two feature film adaptations of the Space Odyssey series. HAL speaks in a soft, calm voice and a conversational manner, in contrast to the crewmen, David Bowman and Frank Poole.
In the film 2001, HAL became operational on 12 January 1992 at the HAL Laboratories in Urbana, Illinois as production number 3. The activation year was 1991 in earlier screenplays and changed to 1997 in Clarke's novel written and released in conjunction with the movie. In addition to maintaining the Discovery One spacecraft systems during the interplanetary mission to Jupiter(or Saturn in the novel), HAL is capable of speech, speech recognition, facial recognition, natural language processing, lip reading, art appreciation, interpreting emotional behaviours, automated reasoning, and playing chess.
Heuristic (computer science)In computer science, artificial intelligence, and mathematical optimization, a heuristic (from Greek εὑρίσκω "I find, discover") is a technique designed for solving a problem more quickly when classic methods are too slow, or for finding an approximate solution when classic methods fail to find any exact solution. This is achieved by trading optimality, completeness, accuracy, or precision for speed. In a way, it can be considered a shortcut.
A heuristic function, also called simply a heuristic, is a function that ranks alternatives in search algorithms at each branching step based on available information to decide which branch to follow. For example, it may approximate the exact solution.
Definition and motivationThe objective of a heuristic is to produce a solution in a reasonable time frame that is good enough for solving the problem at hand. This solution may not be the best of all the solutions to this problem, or it may simply approximate the exact solution. But it is still valuable because finding it does not require a prohibitively long time.
Heuristics may produce results by themselves, or they may be used in conjunction with optimization algorithms to improve their efficiency (e.g., they may be used to generate good seed values).
Results about NP-hardness in theoretical computer science make heuristics the only viable option for a variety of complex optimization problems that need to be routinely solved in real-world applications.
Heuristics underlie the whole field of Artificial Intelligence and the computer simulation of thinking, as they may be used in situations where there are no known algorithms.[2]
Appearances2001: A Space Odyssey (film/novel)HAL became operational in Urbana, Illinois, at the HAL Plant (the University of Illinois' Coordinated Science Laboratory, where the ILLIAC computers were built). The film says this occurred in 1992, while the book gives 1997 as HAL's birth year.
In 2001: A Space Odyssey, HAL is initially considered a dependable member of the crew, maintaining ship functions and engaging genially with its human crew-mates on an equal footing. As a recreational activity, Frank Poole plays against HAL in a game of chess. In the film the artificial intelligence is shown to triumph easily. However, as time progresses, HAL begins to malfunction in subtle ways and, as a result, the decision is made to shut down HAL in order to prevent more serious malfunctions. The sequence of events and manner in which HAL is shut down differs between the novel and film versions of the story. In the aforementioned game of chess HAL makes minor and undetected mistakes in his analysis, a possible foreshadowing to HAL's malfunctioning.
In the film, astronauts David Bowman and Frank Poole consider disconnecting HAL's cognitive circuits when he appears to be mistaken in reporting the presence of a fault in the spacecraft's communications antenna. They attempt to conceal what they are saying, but are unaware that HAL can read their lips. Faced with the prospect of disconnection, HAL decides to kill the astronauts in order to protect and continue its programmed directives. HAL uses one of the Discovery's EVA pods to kill Poole while he is repairing the ship. When Bowman, sans space helmet, uses another pod to attempt to rescue Poole, HAL locks him out of the ship, then disconnects the life support systems of the other hibernating crew members. Bowman circumvents HAL's control, entering the ship by manually opening an emergency airlock with his service pod's clamps, detaching the pod door via its explosive bolts. Bowman jumps across empty space, reenters Discovery, and quickly re-pressurizes the airlock.
While HAL's motivations are ambiguous in the film, the novel explains that the computer is unable to resolve a conflict between his general mission to relay information accurately, and orders specific to the mission requiring that he withhold from Bowman and Poole the true purpose of the mission. (This withholding is considered essential after the findings of a psychological experiment, "Project Barsoom", where humans were made to believe that there had been alien contact. In every person tested, a deep-seated xenophobia was revealed, which was unknowingly replicated in HAL's constructed personality. Mission Controldid not want the crew of Discovery to have their thinking compromised by the knowledge that alien contact was already real.) With the crew dead, HAL reasons, he would not need to lie to them.
In the novel, the orders to disconnect HAL come from Dave and Frank's superiors on Earth. After Frank is killed while attempting to repair the communications antenna he is pulled away into deep space using the safety tether which is still attached to both the pod and Frank Poole's spacesuit. Dave begins to revive his hibernating crew mates, but is foiled when HAL vents the ship's atmosphere into the vacuum of space, killing the awakening crew members and almost killing Bowman, who is only narrowly saved when he finds his way to an emergency chamber which has its own oxygen supply and a spare space suit inside.
In both versions, Bowman then proceeds to shut down the machine. In the film, HAL's central core is depicted as a crawlspace full of brightly lit computer modules mounted in arrays from which they can be inserted or removed. Bowman shuts down HAL by removing modules from service one by one; as he does so, HAL's consciousness degrades. HAL finally reverts to material that was programmed into him early in his memory, including announcing the date he became operational as 12 January 1992 (in the novel, 1997). When HAL's logic is completely gone, he begins singing the song "Daisy Bell" (in actuality, the first song sung by a computer).[4][5] HAL's final act of any significance is to prematurely play a prerecorded message from Mission Control which reveals the true reasons for the mission to Jupiter.
2010: Odyssey Two[edit]In the sequel 2010: Odyssey Two, HAL is restarted by his creator, Dr. Chandra, who arrives on the Soviet spaceship Leonov.
Prior to leaving Earth, Dr. Chandra has also had a discussion with HAL's twin, the SAL 9000. Like HAL, SAL was created by Dr. Chandra. Whereas HAL was characterized as being "male", SAL is characterized as being "female" (voiced by Candice Bergen) and is represented by a blue camera eye instead of a red one.
Dr. Chandra discovers that HAL's crisis was caused by a programming contradiction: he was constructed for "the accurate processing of information without distortion or concealment", yet his orders, directly from Dr. Heywood Floyd at the National Council on Astronautics, required him to keep the discovery of the Monolith TMA-1 a secret for reasons of national security. This contradiction created a "Hofstadter-Moebius loop", reducing HAL to paranoia. Therefore, HAL made the decision to kill the crew, thereby allowing him to obey both his hardwired instructions to report data truthfully and in full, and his orders to keep the monolith a secret. In essence: if the crew were dead, he would no longer have to keep the information secret.
The alien intelligence initiates a terraforming scheme, placing the Leonov, and everybody in it, in danger. Its human crew devises an escape plan which unfortunately requires leaving the Discovery and HAL behind to be destroyed. Dr. Chandra explains the danger, and HAL willingly sacrifices himself so that the astronauts may escape safely. In the moment of his destruction the monolith-makers transform HAL into a non-corporeal being so that David Bowman's avatar may have a companion.
The details in the book and the film are nominally the same, with a few exceptions. First, in contradiction to the book (and events described in both book and film versions of 2001: A Space Odyssey), Heywood Floyd is absolved of responsibility for HAL's condition; it is asserted that the decision to program HAL with information concerning TMA-1 came directly from the White House. In the film, HAL functions normally after being reactivated, while in the book it is revealed that his mind was damaged during the shutdown, forcing him to begin communication through screen text. Also, in the film the Leonov crew lies to HAL about the dangers that he faced (suspecting that if he knew he would be destroyed he would not initiate the engine-burn necessary to get the Leonov back home), whereas in the novel he is told at the outset. However, in both cases the suspense comes from the question of what HAL will do when he knows that he may be destroyed by his actions.
The basic reboot sequence initiated by Dr. Chandra in the movie 2010 is voiced from HAL as, "HELLO_DOCTOR_NAME_CONTINUE_ YESTERDAY_TOMORROW" (which in the novel 2010 is a longer sequence).
Prior to Leonov's return to Earth, Curnow tells Floyd that Dr. Chandra has begun designing HAL 10000.
In 2061: Odyssey Three it is revealed that Chandra died on the journey back to Earth.
2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: The Final Odyssey[edit]In 2061: Odyssey Three, Heywood Floyd is surprised to encounter HAL, now stored alongside Dave Bowman in the Europa monolith.
In 3001: The Final Odyssey Frank Poole was introduced to the merged form of Dave Bowman and HAL, the two merging into one entity called "Halman" after Bowman rescued HAL from the dying Discovery One spaceship towards the end of 2010: Odyssey Two.
"The first and only (as far as we know) Top 10 list Kubrick submitted to anyone was in 1963 to a fledgling American magazine named Cinema (which had been founded the previous year and ceased publication in 1976)," writes the BFI's Nick Wrigley. It runs as follows:
1. I Vitelloni (Fellini, 1953)
2. Wild Strawberries (Bergman, 1957)
3. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
4. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Huston, 1948)
5. City Lights (Chaplin, 1931)
6. Henry V (Olivier, 1944)
7. La notte (Antonioni, 1961)
8. The Bank Dick (Fields, 1940---above)
9. Roxie Hart (Wellman, 1942)
10. Hell’s Angels (Hughes, 1930)
1. I Vitelloni (Fellini, 1953)
2. Wild Strawberries (Bergman, 1957)
3. Citizen Kane (Welles, 1941)
4. The Treasure of the Sierra Madre (Huston, 1948)
5. City Lights (Chaplin, 1931)
6. Henry V (Olivier, 1944)
7. La notte (Antonioni, 1961)
8. The Bank Dick (Fields, 1940---above)
9. Roxie Hart (Wellman, 1942)
10. Hell’s Angels (Hughes, 1930)
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