Prelude to 2001: Explorations in human communication.

N the science fiction film 2001: A Space Odyssey and in the book based on that film (Clarke, 1968), one of the principal characters is a computer called HAL. HAL is quite a remarkable gadget. It directs and plots the course of an enormous vehicle traveling through deep space. It computes courses, speeds, and trajectories for satellite vehicles that leave and return to the mother ship. It monitors continuously the various subsystems of the space ship and displays the information it senses in a variety of forms. In anticipation of emergencies and equipment failures, it alerts the astronauts and suggests expedient courses of remedial action. It controls the physiological condition of astronauts who are in hibernation for the duration of the trip, as well as those who are in a normal physiological state and on duty. When the astronauts are bored, it plays chess with them and engages in other intellectual diversions upon request. Indeed, HAL even has some primitive human emotions and motivations, and it is those that eventually lead to a catastrophic end of the mission. All these things that HAL did in the film are more fact than fiction, for computers today already do all the things enumerated or are at least capable