![]() It’s curious to observe how this happier alternative entails the elimination of the human. Douglas Trumbull, 1972), in which the drone Dewey, after surviving the death of the sole human caretaker of the Valley Forge, tenderly cares for a domed forest habitat as it floats off into deep space. ![]() For example, recall the ending of Silent Running (dir. We could imagine a happier alternative to HAL’s fate. My mind is going…” The tragedy here is not only embodied in the sadness that HAL’s death evokes (indeed, HAL arguably has more personality than any human character in the film), but also in the fact that HAL is the first true ontological innovation since the bone club introduced during the first sequence. ![]() If this is true, then HAL’s pleading with Bowman prior to his deactivation takes on a different overtone: “I’m afraid. After all, this is one apparent effect of exposure to the Monolith. Instead, perhaps HAL is an uplifted AI, that is to say, an AI who in the common idiom transcends his programming and, in fact, achieves qualitative consciousness. In other words, perhaps HAL is not simply the creepier, more mellifluent version of Star Trek’s genocidal space probe Nomad (“The Changeling,” 1967), which self-destructs after being exposed to a logical paradox. Of course, it’s also possible to read in 2001 a possible subtext in which HAL’s cognizance of the Monolith, reflected by his foreknowledge of the Jupiter mission’s true purpose, effectuates cognitive developments akin to those triggered in the prehistoric hominids with whom we began. ![]()
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