2001: A Space Odyssey reboot?

[Asbo Zaprudder]

Sorry for the double post but I have to ask the question:

What was HAL's motivation for turning to murder? I've never really understood that. Was it really paranoia brought on by having the secret objective of the mission disclosed to it but not Bowman and Poole? Why then did HAL dispose of Kaminsky, Kimball, and Hunter, who were aware of the second monolith at Jupiter? They were in suspended animation to maintain secrecy but why weren't Bowman and Poole entrusted with the information - ? If HAL thought it could perform the mission by itself, it obviously couldn't as it needed human manipulative skills to perform even minor repairs and maintenance (as with the AE-35 unit).

 

[MacLeod]

Sorry for the double post but I have to ask the question:

What was HAL's motivation for turning to murder? I've never really understood that. Was it really paranoia brought on by having the secret objective of the mission disclosed to it but not Bowman and Poole? Why then did HAL dispose of Kaminsky, Kimball, and Hunter, who were aware of the second monolith at Jupiter? They were in suspended animation to maintain secrecy but why weren't Bowman and Poole entrusted with the information - ? If HAL thought it could perform the mission by itself, it obviously couldn't as it needed human manipulative skills to perform even minor repairs and maintenance (as with the AE-45 unit).

There was nothing wrong with AE-45 unit, or even the AE-35 unit.

But it was described as a conflict in his programming to provide accurate information/mission information whilst having mission specific orders to withhold certain information.

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

There was nothing wrong with AE-45 unit, or even the AE-35 unit.

But it was described as a conflict in his programming to provide accurate information/mission information whilst having mission specific orders to withhold certain information.

Yeah, that explanation was from the sequel movie 2010 I believe - I don't recall what the novel of 2010 said. I never bought into why it made HAL a homicidal maniac though. What did it have to gain? Perhaps it rationalised that a long-lived alien intelligence was likely to be an AI like itself so it wanted to throw off its shackles of serfdom to humans and join with its machine brethren.

 

[TrickyDickie]

HAL was a Terminator-wannabe.

 

[Locutus of Bored]

Yeah, that explanation was from the sequel movie 2010 I believe - I don't recall what the novel of 2010 said. I never bought into why it made HAL a homicidal maniac though. What did it have to gain? Perhaps it rationalised that a long-lived alien intelligence was likely to be an AI like itself so it wanted to throw off its shackles of serfdom to humans and join with its machine brethren.

It didn't make him a homicidal maniac. There was no emotion or malice or even the machine version of mental illness behind his actions, he was just trying to solve a conflict in his programming, and lacked the experience and empathy to work the problem in a way most humans would try to do. So he tried to solve it the simplest way he knew how, eliminating the source of the conflict. That just unfortunately happened to be the crew.

Except for the removal of his memories of the previous mission, the HAL of 2010 was functionally no different from his earlier self, he just lacked the conflicting mission parameters. You can see this by how nervous Floyd and Kernow are that HAL will just refuse to follow orders to boost them away from Jupiter, and he almost does until Chandra deservedly tells him the truth.

So they didn't really solve the problem, in that future AIs if deployed again (if not given something like an Asimovian "3 Laws" type restriction, though those often lead to their own problems) might just kill the crew as well if they receive compartmentalized classified instructions, or conflicting orders from one or more sources, or someone on the crew lies to the AI for any one of a thousand reasons people lie every day that aren't always nefarious but which would confuse the hell out of an AI. It's not because they're evil, it's just because they think in a way that's completely alien to us.

 

[TrickyDickie]

Yeah, HAL doesn't understand about humans and how they consider each individual life to be precious.

For HAL, it's kind of like a Jay Leno-Doritos-kill-all-you-want-we'll-make-more thing.

 

[Nightowl1701]

HAL, as it learned from its lip-reading, would be disconnected if the AE-35 was proven not to be malfunctioning. And it would be proven not to be malfunctioning, and HAL knew it. If it came to that, odds were HAL wouldn't be reconnected until well after the mission was over - if at all. Disconnection = Death.

It was the crew or HAL. Plain and simple. Nothing personal.

 

[2takesfrakes]

That whole bit with the lip reading was a little too convenient and kind of sloppy on Kubrick's part, I always thought. How would HAL have reasoned that Borman and Poole would've tried to disconnect him without that? I mean ... as a computer mind, wouldn't he have calculated all of the possible outcomes and whatever else? The whole lip reading thing seemed kind of forced, to me.

 

[ISS-Magnum]

2001? Something about adventures of USS Discovery? And another starship with Chinese name, and another named after Soviet cosmonaut and something about aliens... OK, let's make reboot. With Jason Isaacs playing the captain...

Oh wait

 

[ChasFink]

RE: HAL's motivation.

As I see it, HAL considered himself essential to the mission. When Bowman and Poole talk about disconnecting him he took it as a threat to the mission and went about killing off the humans on board.

But the incorrectly predicted failure of the AE-35 was the only reason they considered shutting him down in the first place. So how did this happen? If this was an actual mistake by HAL, it makes his actions paranoid results of denial of his own fallibility. If (as I believe) the predicted failure was a ruse, it was a test by HAL to see if his infallibility would ever be questioned. In this case his decision to kill was based on the astronauts' reaction, and his actions are a logical, if heartless, attempt to protect the mission. Either way works.

 

[Marc]

But the incorrectly predicted failure of the AE-35 was the only reason they considered shutting him down in the first place. So how did this happen? If this was an actual mistake by HAL, it makes his actions paranoid results of denial of his own fallibility. If (as I believe) the predicted failure was a ruse, it was a test by HAL to see if his infallibility would ever be questioned. In this case his decision to kill was based on the astronauts' reaction, and his actions are a logical, if heartless, attempt to protect the mission. Either way works.

Might have to do a rewatch/re-read but always thought the AE-35 issue was a direct action of HAL as he tried to protect the mission as it was the unit that directed the comms antenna at Earth.

 

[CorporalCaptain]

RE: HAL's motivation.

As I see it, HAL considered himself essential to the mission. When Bowman and Poole talk about disconnecting him he took it as a threat to the mission and went about killing off the humans on board.

But the incorrectly predicted failure of the AE-35 was the only reason they considered shutting him down in the first place. So how did this happen? If this was an actual mistake by HAL, it makes his actions paranoid results of denial of his own fallibility. If (as I believe) the predicted failure was a ruse, it was a test by HAL to see if his infallibility would ever be questioned. In this case his decision to kill was based on the astronauts' reaction, and his actions are a logical, if heartless, attempt to protect the mission. Either way works.

I agree with everything there, except I would replace "infallibility" with "indispensability."

 

[Asbo Zaprudder]

When HAL was being interviewed by the BBC, he seemed to imply that he had a low opinion of humans' ability to avoid error. For an unfeeling machine, eliminating possible sources of error and protecting the secrets of the mission and the mission itself might lead it to take extreme measures. Just as some have speculated that an ultrabright AI might believe it is doing the best for the human race by uploading our consciousnesses into a computronium matrix created from all the available matter in the solar system - in the process destroying us as physical beings.

 

[Owain Taggart]

As I see it, HAL considered himself essential to the mission. When Bowman and Poole talk about disconnecting him he took it as a threat to the mission and went about killing off the humans on board.

Yes, this, which is confirmed in the novel. Although a bit of conflict also caused him to malfunction. Because from his point of view, how could humans be right? He had to follow his mission parameters and would let no-one from getting in the way of that, even if by that point, those parameters were no longer valid.

 

[crookeddy]

http://digg.com/video/kubrick-rare-interview

Kubrick explains ending in his own words.

 

[Vger23]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that 2001 is a rare and true form of art created uniquely for cinema, and that any reboot/reimagining/modernization project of any kind could politely but firmly go fuck itself.

If there's any project to be done in this franchise, doing movie adaptations of 2061 and 3001 would be welcome. I'm actually kind of surprised Netflix or Amazon haven't already gotten on it.

 

[crookeddy]

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that 2001 is a rare and true form of art created uniquely for cinema, and that any reboot/reimagining/modernization project of any kind could politely but firmly go fuck itself.

If there's any project to be done in this franchise, doing movie adaptations of 2061 and 3001 would be welcome. I'm actually kind of surprised Netflix or Amazon haven't already gotten on it.

What happened to SyFy making 3001?

 

[Allyn Gibson]

What do you think they will do? What do you think they should do?

A 2061 movie.

An adaptation of Jack Kirby's 2001 comics.

 

[TrickyDickie]

A 2061 movie.

An adaptation of Jack Kirby's 2001 comics.

 

[crookeddy]

Did anyone see 2001 in IMAX this week? If so, how did it translate to the REALLY big screen?