Arts: Is HAL Really IBM?

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Brow Beat Is HAL Really IBM? By Aisha Harris Posted Monday, Jan 07, 2013, at 07:02 PM ET If you've seen the excellent recent documentary Room 237, which is about the many, occasionally outlandish  theories people have about the "real" meaning of Stanley Kubrick's The Shining, you know that some of the director's fans like to hunt for hidden messages in his films. One such message that is occasionally attributed to his 1968 masterpiece, 2001: A Space Odyssey, is that HAL, the sadistic and hyper-intelligent computer, is meant to represent IBM. After all, the computer's three-letter name is an easily decrypted code-version of the corporations own acronym—just move the letters forward one space, and H becomes I, A becomes B, and L becomes M. See? In an 8-minute video attempting to prove the theory, Rob Ager also points to the product placement of IBM's logo on astronaut Bowman's space suit. Kubrick dismissed this theorizing, saying that the computer's name is an acronym for heuristic and algorithmic, "the two methods of computer programming," in his words. Seeing the IBM acronym in those letters "would have taken a cryptographer," he said. But such denials have seemed disingenuous to some. Consider that Arthur C. Clarke, who co-wrote the film and wrote the novel at the same time, had seen an IBM 704 computer make history with the "first known recording of a computer synthesized voice." The computer sang "Daisy Bell." Clarke decided to have HAL sing that same song as it devolves. Whatever Clarke and Kubrick's intentions were with these parallels, they ... To continue reading, click here. Join the Fray: our reader discussion forum What did you think of this article? POST A MESSAGE | READ MESSAGES Also In Slate Obama's Mitch "You Have To Step Up and Be a Man Sometimes" Why Old Men Find Young Women's Voices So Annoying	Advertisement
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