HALL 9000

Denomination

HALL means “Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer” and, in the French version of 2001, the odyssey of space , CARL 500 , is “Analytical Brain of Research and Connection”, which is an approximate translation (moreover abandoned in 2010 , since the author comments on there what follows).

One very quickly realized that the acronym HALL corresponded to IBM by shift of a row of each letter (H->I, A->B, L->M), and that it was perhaps not a chance. Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke always contradicted this allegation (including via a character in 2010, Odyssée two). In its word of good-bye at the end of 3001, the final Odyssey, Clarke repeats that the bond is not voluntary, but that does not pose any more a problem to him since IBM said itself flattered bringing together.

The data processing of the Sixties and speculations

It is not solely by the celebrity of film of Stanley Kubrick that the computer HALL 9000 passed to the posterity, but also by the precision and the serious one with which the technical advisers of film imagined this “speculative fiction”. At the time where the scenario was conceived (towards 1965 - 1967) by Kubrick and Clarke, the direction which progress as regards “electronic brains seemed to take”, (according to the terminology of the time…), this anticipation made very credible. Indeed, the Calculator S exchanges already of use in the banks, the insurance companies, the administrations, etc, the observation of research in progress in the field of the Artificial intelligence, and finally the increasing means of calculation required by the stammering Space conquest inevitably made imagine the intelligent systems of the future like grosses central processing units ( Mainframes ) managing out of star of peripheral multiples (of the final ).

Scientific Kubrick and its advisers wanted a probable Anticipation, therefore documented well. However, in 1968, the Microprocesseur did not exist, the mouse and the graphical interfaces were still in the paperboards of Douglas Engelbart (to leave only a few years them later), data processing remained heavy and cumbersome (known as “the minis” computers made the size of a cupboard) and the most famous model of the time, the IBM 360 (of which the design of HALL is, obviously, inspired) occupied a broad part.

Kubrick and Clarke could thus imagine another thing only one omnipotent great system, which they equipped with what progress of the time let believe close: the synthesis and the perfect Voice recognition S, a visual recognition, a man-machine Interface natural, extremely flexible input units and, especially, an emulation of the human reasoning as faithful as possible to its model.

Interior of what is supposed to be the central processing unit of Stockage and calculation, these reddish alignments of storage blocks ( Logic Memory Center ) as well as the supposed Circuit S to manage the operations emulating the intelligence (these so impressive transparent blocks) that the astronaut David Bowman (Keir Dullea) disconnects, make smile today, mainly by their enormous obstruction; it is this aspect which saw the least just. In addition, the large centralized machines became minority, HALL representing from this point of view the perfect opposite of modern architectures in network, such as Internet. Nevertheless, the holographic storage proposed for HALL (this point is confirmed in the novel 2010, Odyssée two) is, if not in the form, nevertheless on the principle, regularly announced like a nearest evolution of the systems of mass memory. About this point, Kubrick and Clarke had been well indicated and it seems that their prediction is not far from being carried out.

However, many prowesses of HALL, compatible with the Test of Turing, are largely out of reach computers of today (to usually speak, to show psychology, to recognize a face according to a drawing).

From a cinematographic point of view, Kubrick made the “character” more outstanding still by some brilliant lucky finds, taking the opposite course to the stereotypes of the time. Thus, instead of giving to the calculator an inhuman synthetic voice (at the time the examples did not miss: Colossus, The Forbin Project, (1970), or the inénarrables " Daleks" (1966), florets of the British Series Z), it made the bet be likely to give him that of an actor shakespearien, Douglas Rain (the French voice that of was regretted François Chaumette). The red terminals laid out in all the neuralgic points of the spaceship, observing the astronauts constantly, inevitably make think of the “large-sized telescreens” of Orwell, reinforcing one of the messages of film, namely the threat of the devouring technique.

Others

the Astéroïde n° 9000 was called in honor of the computer: (9000) Hall.

See too

article on HALL 9000 on www.robothalloffame.org
an analysis of the role of HALL 9000 in 2001, the odyssey of space on www.vieartificielle.com
" HALL 9000: 'The eye was in the tomb… '" , article of Elie During

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