Algorithms generally have some quantifiable goal, toward which each of its actions should make progress- like winning a game of checkers, chess or Go. The actions of a computational machine are dictated by decisions encoded by humans in algorithms that control the devices. Some of the considerations involve relatively simple questions about the reliability of machines, but other issues are more subtle.Ī screenshot from 2001: A Space Odyssey showing HAL, a sentient computer that controls the systems of the Discovery One spacecraft. Citizens, policymakers, experts and researchers are all still exploring the degree to which automation could-or should-take humans out of the loop. HAL's control of Discovery is like a deep-space version of the networked home of the future or the driverless car. The life-or-death chess match between the humans and HAL offers precursors of some of today's questions about the prevalence and deployment of artificial intelligence in people's daily lives.įirst and foremost is the question of how much control people should cede to artificially intelligent machines, regardless of how "smart" the systems might be. Dave and Frank want to pull the plug on a failing computer, while self-aware HAL wants to live. The tension of the film's third act revolves around Bowman and his crewmate Frank Poole becoming increasingly aware that HAL is malfunctioning, and HAL's discovery of these suspicions. HAL has complete control of the ship and also, as it turns out, is the only crew member who knows the true goal of the mission. The humans interact with HAL by speaking to him, and he replies in a measured male voice, somewhere between stern-yet-indulging parent and well-meaning nurse. HAL is not just a technological assistant to the crew, but rather-in the words of the mission commander Dave Bowman-the sixth crew member. HAL marks the pinnacle of computational achievement: a self-aware, seemingly infallible device and a ubiquitous presence in the ship, always listening, always watching. The artificial intelligence of 2001 is embodied in HAL, the omniscient computational presence, the brain of the Discovery One spaceship-and perhaps the film's most famous character. What can computers do?Ī chief drama of the movie can in many ways be viewed as a battle to the death between human and computer. But Kubrick and Clarke hit the bulls-eye when imagining the possibilities, problems and challenges of the future of artificial intelligence. People are not yet routinely visiting space stations, making unremarkable visits to one of several moon bases, nor traveling to other planets. The most obvious way in which 2018 has fallen short of the vision of 2001 is in space travel. A striking work of speculative fiction, it depicts-in terms sometimes hopeful and other times cautionary-a future of alien contact, interplanetary travel, conscious machines and even the next great evolutionary leap of humankind. Clarke and film director Stanley Kubrick, inspired by Clarke's novel Childhood's End and his lesser-known short story The Sentinel. The movie was made through a collaboration with science fiction writer Arthur C. Watching a 50th-anniversary screening of 2001: A Space Odyssey, I found myself, a mathematician and computer scientist whose research includes work related to artificial intelligence, comparing the story's vision of the future with the world today.
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