HAL's Legacy 2001?s Computer as Dream and Reality

David G. Stork

ISBN 10: 0262193787 / ISBN 13: 9780262193788

Published by MIT Press, 1996

Seller Inventory # E-9780262193788-2-2

Synopsis:

"I became operational . . . in Urbana, Illinois, on January 12, 1997."

Inspired by HAL's self-proclaimed birth date, HAL's Legacy reflects upon science fiction's most famous computer and explores the relationship between science fantasy and technological fact. The informative, nontechnical chapters written especially for this book describe many of the areas of computer science critical to the design of intelligent machines, discuss whether scientists in the 1960s were accurate about the prospects for advancement in their fields, and look at how HAL has influenced scientific research.

Contributions by leading scientists look at the technologies that would be critical if we were, as Arthur Clarke and Stanley Kubrick imagined thirty years ago, to try and build HAL in 1997: supercomputers, fault-tolerance and reliability, planning, artificial intelligence, lipreading, speech recognition and synthesis, commonsense reasoning, the ability to recognize and display emotion, and human-machine interaction. Not only would these technologies be critical in building HAL, but all are being explored for the design of today's intelligent machines. A separate chapter by philosopher Daniel Dennett considers the ethical implications of intelligent machines.

Profusely illustrated with color images from the film and from current research, HAL's Legacy provides surprising new perspectives on key moments in the film - you will never view 2001 the same way again.

From the Author: RESOURCES ASSOCIATED WITH HAL'S LEGACY
You can read several chapters of "HAL's Legacy" online at:

http://www-mitpress.mit.edu/Hal/

and see some of the celebrations associated with the birth of the HAL 9000 computer at:

http://matia.stanford.edu/~stork/HALTalks.html.

The book is profusely illustrated with images from "2001" and current research, and is written for nonscientific and scientific audiences alike, and will appeal especially to fans of science fantasy and technological reality familiar with the film. It consists of chapters specially written by world leaders in various aspects of computer science, as listed on the Table of Contents. The book has four main goals:

1) Compare the vision of computer science as
expressed in "2001: A Space Odyssey" with
actual developments in the 30 years since the
film's release.

2) Teach basic aspects of computer science, such as
speech recognition, computer vision, language
understanding, lipreading, and artificial
intelligence, and the difficulties in solving
them.

3) Shed greater light on the movie itself, giving the
viewer a deeper aesthetic appreciation of the
film.

4) Show how the film influenced the careers of
budding computer scientists.

The book sheds light on key moments of the film: you will never see "2001" (or your own computer) the same way again.

Bibliographic Details

Title: HAL's Legacy 2001?s Computer as Dream and ...
Publisher: MIT Press
Publication Date: 1996
Binding: Hardcover
Condition: Very good