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HAL 9000

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HAL 9000 (Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer) is a fictional computer/character in the Space Odyssey series, the first being the novel and film 2001 A Space Odyssey, written by Arthur C. Clarke in 1968. HAL is an artificial intelligence, the sentient on-board computer of the spaceship Discovery that eventually runs rampant. HAL is usually represented only as his television camera "eyes" that can be seen throughout the Discovery spaceship. The voice of HAL 9000 was performed by Canadian actor Douglas Rain. HAL became operational on January 12, 1997 (1992 in the movie) [1] at the H.A.L. Laboratory in Urbana, Illinois, and was created by Dr. Chandra. In the 2001 film, HAL is depicted as being capable not only of speech recognition, facial recognition, and natural language processing, but also lip reading, art appreciation, interpreting emotions, expressing emotions and reasoning.

A view of HAL 9000's Brain Room in the Discovery.

In other languages than English, HAL might have another name: for instance, in the French version of 2001 A Space Odyssey, his name is stated as being CARL, for Cerveau Analytique de Recherche et de Liaison ("Analytic Research and Communication Brain"). However, the famous camera plates still read "HAL 9000".

Some versions state that the name HAL was derived by a one letter shift (see Caesar cipher) from the name IBM, although this has been denied by both Arthur C. Clarke and his fictional character Dr. Chandra, who states that "by now, any idiot should know that HAL stands for Heuristic ALgorithmic" (2010).

1 HAL's history
2 SAL 9000
3 The future of computing
4 Trivia
5 See also
6 External links

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HAL's history

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

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HAL in 2001: A Space Odyssey

In 2001: A Space Odyssey, after HAL appears to be mistaken about a fault in the spacecraft, astronauts David Bowman and Frank Poole consider disconnecting his cognitive circuits. They believe that HAL cannot hear them, but are unaware that HAL is capable of lip reading. Faced with the prospect of disconnection, HAL proceeds to kill Frank Poole while he is repairing the ship as well as the other members of the crew who are in suspended animation. Realizing what has occurred, astronaut David Bowman then shuts the machine down. HAL's central core is depicted as a room 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, we witness HAL's consciousness degrading. By the time HAL's logic is completely gone, he begins singing the song "Daisy Bell," which is perhaps the most recognised scene in the film. HAL 9000 is also well known for a chess game he plays with Frank Poole, whose defeat is seen as an ominous foreshadowing to both the future events of the movie and the increasing dominance of machine over man.

HAL 9000's characteristic console

The book differs from the movie in a number of details. Firstly, the book explains far more explicitly the causes of HAL's behavior. Secondly, in the movie, HAL shuts Bowman out of the craft after Bowman attempts to retrieve Poole's body. In the book, Bowman stays within the ship and is forced to shut down HAL after HAL attempts to kill him by opening the ship's airlocks.

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HAL in 2010: Odyssey Two

In the sequel 2010: Odyssey Two, HAL is restarted by his creator, Dr. Chandra, who arrives on the Soviet spaceship Leonov. 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 required him to keep the discovery of the monolith TMA-1 a secret. This contradiction created a "Hofstadter-Moebius loop," reducing HAL to paranoia.

The alien intelligences controlling the monoliths have grandiose plans for Jupiter, plans which place the Leonov 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 sacrifices himself for the Leonov's crew. 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 film are nominally the same, with one important exception——in the film, HAL functions normally after being reactivated. In the book, it is revealed that his voice circuits were destroyed during the shutdown, forcing him to communicate through screen text.

The session of keyboard/screen interaction between HAL and Dr. Chandra has a taste of SHRDLU, which both increases the realism of the scene, and gives an interesting insight of the perception of Artificial Intelligence at the time the book was written.

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HAL in 2061: Odyssey Three and 3001: The Final Odyssey

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, we meet the merged forms of Dave Bowman and HAL. The two have merged into one entity called Halman after Bowman rescued HAL from the dying Discovery One spaceship towards the end of 2010: Odyssey Two. Halman helps Frank Poole infect the monolith (which it once served) with a computer virus; as the primitive life in Jupiter's clouds were sacrificed to make Jupiter into a sun to warm Europa, it is feared that humanity would in turn be sacrificed for the new life on Europa.

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SAL 9000

HAL 9000 has at least one Earthbound twin, SAL 9000. SAL (or possibly another "twin niner-triple-zero") was used as a reference system for HAL; when the twin computer fails to predict any communications failure, Bowman and Poole begin to suspect HAL's reliability. SAL is clearly "female", and features similar camera plates like HAL, but the "eye" is blue. Dr. Chandra has a private terminal to SAL's mainframe in his office, and his influence causes her to develop a slightly Indian accent, making her sound like an Indian princess returning from college in Cambridge (2010: Odyssey Two). In the film version, SAL is voiced by Candice Bergen, who was credited only under a pseudonym (as 'Olga Mallsnerd').

Before the Soviet-USA mission to retrieve Discovery, Chandra uses her for a simulation of the possible effects that a prolonged "sleep" might have induced in HAL, code-named Project Phoenix. When Dr. Chandra taunts SAL to guess the reason for the name, her display of culture makes it clear that SAL has access to some form of encyclopedic knowledge database.

In the book 2010, we learn that another ground-based HAL machine undergoes the same psychosis that HAL does.

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The future of computing

When the film 2001 was first screened in 1968, the year 2001 was a long way away and a computer like HAL seemed quite plausible at the time. In the mid-1960s computer scientists were generally optimistic that within a generation or two we would have machines that could do "just about anything humans could do".

However, as 2001 approached it became clear that 2001's predictions in computer technology were far fetched. Natural language, lip reading, planning and plain common sense in computers were still the stuff of science fiction.

But 2001 also failed to predict many of the advances that would take place in computing by 2001. The film's creators felt that as computers got more powerful, they would get bigger and bigger. HAL occupies much of the living area on Discovery. A thin laptop or notepad computer is alluded to in a few scenes where they are used to relay news broadcasts from Earth. Also, the film's portrayal of computer graphics are elegant, though minimalist compared to the overindulgent graphics and visualization techniques available in 2001.

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Trivia

HAL was also "featured" in a short commercial by Apple Computer in the year 1999 in which he asks Dave if he likes his Mac more than him (because Macs would not undergo the same potential problems with the "Year 2000 problem" that many other computer systems were expected to have).
In the Windows computer game Star Control 3 the computer onboard the warp bubble transport spaceship resembles HAL 9000 almost exactly. The voice is also similar.
On the television series Recess, Principal Prickly installs a system much like HAL 9000.
The film Independence Day features a scene where Jeff Goldblum (whose character's name is Dave) boots a PowerBook 5300 with the startup chime replaced with HAL 9000's voice: "Good morning, Dave."
Douglas Rain has steadfastly refused to recreate the HAL 9000 voice outside of any 2001/2010 context, feeling a very protective obligation to the integrity of the computer's character. However, he parodies his famous performance in the Woody Allen comedy Sleeper by providing the voice of the computer as well as some of the robot butlers.
Asteroid number 9000, discovered by E. L. G. Bowell in 1981, was eventually given the name "Hal".
On The Simpsons, during "Treehouse of Horror XII," there is a segment that has a character similar to HAL 9000, which was voiced by Pierce Brosnan.
On Stargate Atlantis, a brief glimpse of HAL's "eye" can be seen in the episode "The Intruder".
In the Futurama episode Love and Rocket, the actions of the lovestruck Planet Express Ship (voiced by Sigourney Weaver) extensively parody those of HAL in several scenes. The ship even comments "Oh! If only I could read lips!" upon observing other characters secretly talking in the shower.
In the computer game Startopia the player's primary assistant is a computer by the name of VAL, whose voice resembles that of HAL, and comments that he once had an owner by the name of Dave.
In the computer game Where in Space is Carmen Sandiego? the one-eyed computer encyclopedia is named VAL 9000.
In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the computer, TEC XX was obviously based on HAL, though not evil. It helps Peach send e-mail to Mario in exchange for learning more about human emotions, and what Sir Grodus is up to (he cannot access what is not in his hard drive). Grodus, however, discovers what TEC is doing, and Peach is interrupted in the middle of her last e-mail to Mario. TEC is reformatted, but not before sending the e-mail. Mario later encounters him on the way out of the X-Naut Fortress, who reveals where Peach is and, with his last power, powers up a teleporter out of the base. TEC detonates explosives, destroying the X-Naut Fortress, but mysteriously, the base and TEC are restored (possibly by Peach's doing; TEC reports seeing her as he revives) after the end of the main game.
In the webseries Red vs Blue, Sheila the tank sings Daisy Bell as she dies, just like HAL 9000. She even says beforehand ,"I'm scared, Dave. Will I dream?"
HAL Laboratory, a video game company based in Japan, takes its name from HAL 9000.
A sentient refrigerator named CAL 900 features in the TV series Spaced.
In an episode of South Park entitled "Trapper Keeper", Kyle must stop Cartman and his Trapper Keeper from taking over the world. When Kyle enters Cartman/Trapper Keeper it resembles the brain room of HAL 9000 in 2001: A Space Odyssey. Cartman even utters the famous lines "What are you doing, [Kyle]?" and "I'm afraid I can't let you do that," in a similar fashion to the sinister HAL 9000.
A computer similar to HAL appears in the adult film Space Nuts, and refers to the "Dark Overlord" as "Dave" until shot at by the latter.
HAL/S is a real-time aerospace programming language, best known for its use in the Space Shuttle program. HAL officially stands for High-order Assembly Language, though the fictional HAL 9000 computer may well have been an inspiration.
In the episode of The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy titled "The House of No Tomorrow," the Master Computer that controls the robots in the House of Tomorrow at Sassy Cat land has a voice similar to HAL.
In the British TV comedy series Red Dwarf, the computer aboard the spaceship is called Holly and the only surviving human on the ship is named Dave.
During a movie-break skit in an episode of Mystery Science Theater 3000 in which they lampoon the movie Mitchell, the robot Gypsy attempts to read the lips of Dr. Forrester and Frank, mocking HAL's famous lip-reading scene.
During one of the later episodes of the anime Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex, the Major discusses the dismissal of the intelligent robot tanks, the Tachikoma, with her right-hand man, Batou. The Tachikoma, meanwhile, spy on them from above and read their lips, alluding to HAL's lip-reading scene.
On the video game Dr. Muto, there is a computer system named AL, which has surprisingly similar voice to HAL 9000. However, AL also has his own personality and constantly mocks its creator, Dr, Muto. The game also hints AL taking full rebellion of the mad scientist, once the player finished the game. Sadly, that never happens at the end. AL is voiced by Wally Fields.
In the USA Channel's animated series Duckman, Duckman (voiced by Seinfeld's Jason Alexander) destroys an evil supercomputer, and it begins singing "Daisy, Daisy".
In the video game Red Faction by THQ, an orbital station the player boards has a level housing a set of computer rooms, each with the distinctive "red blocks" reminiscent of the memory blocks in the HAL brain room.
Anthony Hopkins claimed that HAL was the inspiration for his interpretation of the character Hannibal Lecter.
In General Protection Fault's "2001: A Space Oddity" series, Nick tries out artificial intelligence hardware PAL. However, it acts condescendingly towards him, and, claiming that the toilet is running, locks him in the bathroom. Nick escapes and unplugs PAL, who re-enacts HAL's' famous "daisy, daisy" scene after Nick unplugs it.
The Care Bears feature Care Bears: Journey to Joke-a-lot includes a computer called "Pal." The computer repatedly refers to the film's villain, Funnybone, as "Dave." Later, Funnybone specifically asks the computer to "open the pod bay doors" and the computer responds by telling him "I'm afraid I can't do that, Dave."