Talk:HAL 9000

message: This article mentions under "The future of computing" section that "As 2001 approached, it became clear that the film's depiction of computer technology was too optimistic. Capabilities such as natural language processing, lip reading, and commonsense reasoning on the part of computers were still science fiction. "  The Wikipedia article on speech recognition states the following "In 1982, Kurzweil Applied Intelligence and Dragon Systems released speech recognition products. By 1985, Kurzweil’s software had a vocabulary of 1,000 words—if uttered one word at a time. Two years later, in 1987, its lexicon reached 20,000 words, entering the realm of human vocabularies, which range from 10,000 to 150,000 words. But recognition accuracy was only 10% in 1993. Two years later, the error rate crossed below 50%. Dragon Systems released "Naturally Speaking" in 1997 which recognized normal human speech. "  Speech_recognition  --Mizcalamity (talk) 06:07, 19 November 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Was natural language processing still only "science fiction" in 2001? 

message: Though the article references some differences between the film and novel, it seems to ignore one of the principle differences, that in the novel the mission is to Saturn, whereas in the film goes to Jupiter.Gymnophoria (talk) 01:57, 19 February 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Jupiter/Saturn in the film/novel 

message: I thought we had corrected the information that SAL 9000 was 'HAL's twin'.
This is not stated in the novel 2010 or the film version of 2010.
In fact we don't know from Clarke's novel when SAL 9000 was built.
In Clarke's novel , 2001, there are two (only one in the film ) ground based HAL 9000's.
Neither of which is called SAL 9000.
aajacksoniv (talk) 13:49, 31 May 2011 (UTC)
thread_title: SAL 9000 

message: Are Smartphones Becoming Smart Alecks? New Devices Dish Out Sarcasm, Tell Jokes; 'Two iPhones Walk Into a Bar' by Geoffrey A. Fowler 15.Oct.2011 in the Wall Street Journal.  97.87.29.188 (talk) 19:52, 16 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  [[IPhone 4S|iPhone S4]]-related resource 

message: This description of HAL's dilemma is so far off base (not to mention uncited) so it's going here before I rewrite it extensively;
I guess the nicest thing I can say is that there's some warm nostalgia for the way Wikipedia was in 2005, when we had all sorts of half-baked completely-pulled-out-of-someone's-ass OR-ish conjecture like this in articles.
I read the book and I remember it quite well. Only the first clause is true. The rest of it sounds completely made up by someone who took the wrong drugs before trying to fake their book report.
HAL's dilemma results from the conflict between his general instruction to relay all information accurately with his specific instruction to conceal the true purpose of the mission from Bowman and Poole. So, he decides to resolve the conflict by arranging the accidental death of the crew (the First Law of Robotics be damned). 
For Pete's sake, Clarke not only reiterated this in 2010, it's in the movie. Bob Balaban explains this, and says it more directly: "HAL was told to lie by people who find this easy to do. HAL doesn't know how to" and then reminds Roy Scheider he should know, because he signed the orders. Daniel Case (talk)Daniel Case (talk) 17:03, 25 October 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  HAL's dilemma ... huh? 

message: Would it be possible to add that the ship's computer in Red Dwarf, 'Holly', is a spoof/parody of HAL? -Tra-  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.112.127.235 (talk) 20:38, 20 April 2014 (UTC)
thread_title:  HAL/Holly - Red Dwarf 

message: The novel consistently uses "Hal" as the computer's name. It is introduced in chapter 16 which is named "Hal". Page 98 has "It was the highly advanced HAL 9000 computer, the brain and nervous system of the ship. Hal (for Heuristically programmed ALgorithmic computer, no less) was a masterwork of the third computer breakthrough."  When referring to the model the book nearly always consistently uses "HAL 9000" (page 98, 99) but when referring to the machine and in conversations it's always "Hal".  I said nearly always as page 137 has Mission Control saying "... and both our Hal Nine Thousands are in agreement". That's the only time the book used "Hal 9000" rather than HAL 9000.
Would there be a consensus for using "Hal" in the article when referring to stuff from the novel?  Another option is to consistently use "HAL 9000" and never "HAL" by itself when referring to the machine. --Marc Kupper|talk 05:30, 1 November 2015 (UTC)
thread_title:  HAL vs. Hal 

message: An editor added a cite to  to support the claim that a computer in the film Wall-E is among the "Villainous computers inspired by HAL." In fact, that that source does not mention any connection between HAL and any computer in the movie; it says "The robot's only companion is a lovable cockroach Hal (named both for the "2001" computer and for legendary Hollywood producer Hal Roach)."
Based on the actual content of the source, I revised the sentence to refer to the roach, rather than to the computer.
This was in turn edited, with the edit summary "roach never referenced to 'HAL' in the film and source does not give a reason animators called it 'HAL'", and again stating that a computer, not the roach, is inspired by HAL, and changing to an archive source at . That source, though, doesn't say much beyond (on page 2, you need to click through) "I am trying to homage to HAL [from 2001] and all that", which is a bit non-specific.
I'm not campaigning for the roach statement; that was just in the interest of accuracy to actually characterize the cited source correctly. Should we just strike the phrase about Wall-E? Doesn't seem like the connection is very firm. TJRC (talk) 23:13, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: Since this section of the article is headlined Cultural impact, maybe the right solution would be to replace "Villainous computers inspired by HAL have appeared in..." with "Homages to HAL have appeared in..."  (I suspect that the unreferenced homage in Futurama isn't exactly a villainous computer either.) AlineXu (talk) 01:11, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: The "roach Hal" was a private joke amongst animators (and bares no relationship to the computer HAL, more likely they were paying homage to Hal Roach). It has no Cultural impact at all (unknown to the general public) so does not belong in the section. AUTO/HAL has more sourceing. There may be a better argument for deleting the entire sentence - as it is right now reference A + reference B + reference C = "Cultural impact" is WP:SYNTH. There needs to be a single reliable source that makes that statement... not seeing that right now. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 01:34, 8 August 2017 (UTC)
replies: text: I'm fine with killing the sentence, too. I think we see way too much of this in Wikipedia. TJRC (talk) 01:48, 8 August 2017 (UTC)

text: There being no objection, I've removed the sentence. TJRC (talk) 21:08, 11 August 2017 (UTC)
thread_title:  Wall-E 

message: Someone needs to include the famous quote;  "I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that."
2600:1700:8830:8DF0:19AD:B144:7E5D:5774 (talk) 01:14, 8 August 2018 (UTC)
thread_title:  Famous Quote 

message: I'm sorry, couldn't someone find a picture of HAL's full interface (or even the circuits room in which Bowman floats) to be put in the infobok? The mere rendering of the eye is the only picture in the page and I find that it's not enough.
--Aledownload (talk) 16:38, 12 November 2018 (UTC)
thread_title: Infobox picture

message: Is there any more information we can put on here regarding the 2 other aformentioned books? i feel as though we could certainly add more.Larne2019 (talk) 14:47, 3 October 2019 (UTC)
thread_title:  Additional information other than the books 

message: All available sources on "HAL 9000 Original requisite from 2001 A Space Odyssey - retouche.jpg" state it is a replica re: "Réplica. Dennis Gilliam, Riverside, CA.", Unfortunately the HAL 9000 faceplate on display at the Kubrick Exhibition is not an original prop. It's a replica by Dennis Gilliam, and identified as such at the show., Dennis Gilliam's page on making replica's and claim there is only one existent movie used HAL faceplate, which is different from this one (no lens, different wear pattern on the logo). I have reverted the wording accordingly. Fountains of Bryn Mawr (talk) 14:25, 11 November 2022 (UTC)
thread_title:  HAL faceplate 

message: In this article it states,"HAL became operational in Urbana, Illinois, at the HAL Plant (the University of Illinois's Coordinated Science Laboratory, where the ILLIAC computers were built)".
Since I was at the Coordinated Science Laboratory from 1966 to 1973, I find the comment "where the ILLIAC computers were built" slightly misleading.
The ILLIAC computers were built at the University of Illinois, and the Illiac I was built in the same building as CSL, but it was not built by CSL.  Also, all the other ILLIAC computers were not built by CSL.  ILLIAC IV was to be housed again in the same building as CSL (another building from the one that ILLIAC I was in), but due to the war protests the University and Defense Dept. decided to actually place the machine at Ames Research Center in CA.
Further, CSL was the only Laboratory at the University of Illinois with a substantial AI project at that time, so the attribution to CSL (for a work of fiction) would be proper, I suppose. Dr.sliderule (talk) 20:20, 5 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Source of HAL Plant Information 

message: I suggest adding back a portion of the most recently-excised Mark Dery quotations. On July 28 2023 this article's Sexuality section went slightly viral on Twitter for discussing HAL 9000's "stereotypic bitchy homosexual" affect (a quote by Mark Dery in 2012) and it caused a very quick edit and trimdown. However, now, the section appears so watered down that it essentially says nothing either way, citing Arthur Clarke's ambivalent answers about HAL 9000's sexuality from 1997 and a "gay fictional character list" from the 1980s. Not to discount older sources but a contemporary queer analysis seems more relevant to the subject matter, and frankly Mark Dery is a well-known writer and critic who even devoted sections of a 2018 biography to the contested, ambivalent sexuality of a man who rarely divulged a full accounting of it. Sound familiar? I suggest adding back a portion of the removed 2012 analysis from Dery. Daniel4hou (talk) 11:04, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
replies: text: You make some good points.  I would support restoring the deleted material in its entirety.  Wikipedia is WP:NOTCENSORED and I  suspect this IP editor with no other edits besides this removal may not be aware of that policy. Miner Editor (talk) 18:55, 12 August 2023 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sexuality Section Seems Needlessly Watered Down?