Chapter 4 Chapter 3 Thrall 9000

Dr. Swansea Demenian Chandrasekarampilei, a professor of computer science at the University of Illinois, also feels guilty, but it feels very different from Heywood Floyd.His students and colleagues often speculated whether the tiny scientist was human, and they would not have been surprised to learn that he never thought about the dead astronauts.Dr. Chandra is only sad for his lost child, computer Hal 9000. Even after all these years and the countless times he reviewed the data sent back from Discovery, he still wasn't sure what was wrong.He could only speculate, the facts he wanted to know still frozen in HAL's looping circuits, between distant Jupiter and Io.

It was clear what happened and how it happened until tragedy struck; after that, Commander Bowman sent back fragmentary details of events when he briefly re-established contact.But just knowing what happened doesn't explain why. The first signs of trouble emerged late in the mission, when Hal reported that an antenna element linking the ground with Discovery was about to fail.If the signal transmission system spanning tens of billions of kilometers cannot be aimed at the target, Discovery will become blind, deaf and dumb. Bowman himself went outside to replace the suspect component, but when it was inspected, to everyone's surprise, it was found to be in perfect condition.The automatic detection system found nothing wrong, and Hal's twin brother on the ground, the Sal 9000, also found the same when the information was transmitted back to Urbana. in conclusion.

But Hall stood by its diagnosis, highlighting possible "human error."It suggested reinstalling the control element on the antenna and not figuring out what was wrong until it finally went wrong.No one thought of rejecting the offer, as the unit could be reassembled in just a few minutes, even though it is now disassembled. But Bowman and Poole were not happy. They both felt that something was wrong, but neither could pinpoint what was wrong.For several months, they regarded Hal as the third member of this small world, and they were familiar with all its temperaments.At that time, the atmosphere in the spaceship changed subtly, and there was a tense element in the air.

Feeling like a traitor—as the nearly frenzied Bowman later reported to the control center—the two-thirds human population of this little world had discussed what they would do if their robotic counterparts did malfunction. .The worst possibility, Hal will be relieved of all senior responsibilities.This involves dismantling -- which is tantamount to death for a computer. Despite their skepticism, they went ahead with the plan.Poole flew out of Discovery in a small space capsule to return the antenna elements and install them.Since the work of reinstalling the antenna elements could not be done by the capsule alone, Poole went out of the capsule to do it manually.

The fact that the external cameras failed to capture what was actually happening is itself a questionable detail.The first warning of disaster that Bowman got was a cry from Poole—then there was a dead silence.A moment later he saw Poole, tumbling and spinning into space.His own pod knocked him into the air, and then it too exploded out of control. As Bowman later admitted himself, he went on to make several serious mistakes—forgivable though.To rescue Poole, if he was still alive, Bowman himself went into a space pod - giving Hal full control of the entire spaceship. The operation was futile, and Poole was dead by the time Bowman arrived.In a desperate stupor, he returns to the ship with the body - only to be turned away by Howl.

But Howl underestimated the wisdom and perseverance of human beings.Although he had left the helmet of his space suit inside the ship and therefore had to risk exposure to space, Bowman forced his way into the ship through an emergency entrance not controlled by the computer.Then he restrained Hal and pulled out the computer chips one by one. When he regained control of the spacecraft, Bowman was shocked to discover that Hal had turned off the life support systems of the three hibernating astronauts after he left.Bowman was plunged into utter solitude unprecedented in all of human history.

Others might be overwhelmed by deep despair, but here David Bowman proved that the people who drafted him were right.He managed to steer Discovery, turning the entire ship so that the antennas were aimed at Earth, and re-establishing intermittent communication with ground control. According to the scheduled route, Discovery finally arrived at Jupiter, where, in the orbit of this giant planet and its satellites, Bowman discovered a black plate, its shape was exactly the same as the monolith found in Tycho Crater on the moon— — but magnified hundreds of times.He took a space capsule to investigate, and in the end, he left an inexplicable sentence: "My God, this place is full of stars!" and disappeared.

That mystery was left for others to worry about, and Dr. Chandra had only Hal on his mind.If there was one thing he hated in his cold inner world, it was uncertainty.He would only be satisfied if he knew what caused Hal's actions.Even now, he refuses to call the incident a "glitch," calling it "misbehavior." His little private space consisted of a swivel chair, a desk console, and a blackboard, with two pictures hung symmetrically on either side. Few people recognize these two portraits, but anyone will at least immediately think of these two names: John von Neumann and Alan Turing, two pioneers in the field of computing.

There are no books here, not even paper and pencils on the table.With just a flick of Chandra's finger, all the books in the libraries in the world can be viewed, and the screen is his notepad and scribbling board.The blackboard was only for visitors, and the half-drawn diagrams on it were three weeks ago. Dr. Chandra lit a chegar he had imported from Madras, whose smoking was known - and was - his only defect.The console was on, he checked, there was no important message on the screen, and he said into the microphone, "Good morning, Sal, don't you have any news for me?" "No, Dr. Chandra. Do you have any news for me?" The voice had the accent of an Indian woman educated in the United States or natively.Thrall's accent wasn't originally like that, but she'd slowly picked up a lot of Chandra's pronunciation over the years.

The scientist typed a code on the keyboard to open Thrall's mnemonic at the highest security level.No one knew he was talking to a computer on the line in a way he had never communicated with a human being.Even though Thrall can only really understand a fraction of what he says, her answers are convincing, so even her creator can be tricked at times.Just as he'd hoped: Those secret exchanges helped maintain his mental balance—and maybe even his sanity. "You've often told me, Thrall, that we can't explain Hal's behavior without more information. But how do we get that information?"

"That's obvious. Someone has to return to Discovery." "Indeed. Now it looks like it's going to happen, sooner than we thought." "Glad to hear that." "I know you'll be happy," Chandra said sincerely.Since long ago he cut ties with the little people who called themselves philosophers who argued that computers don't have real feelings and are just pretending to be philosophers. ("If you can prove to me that you're not faking annoyance," he once shot back contemptuously at a fellow blathering on the subject, "I'll take your word for it." In response, he opponents display the full range of rage.) "Now I want to explore another possibility," Chandra continued, "diagnosis is only the first step, and treatment can complete the whole process." "Do you believe Hal will be back to normal?" "I hope so. I don't know. Perhaps irreversible damage has occurred, and primary memory has been lost." He pauses to contemplate, exhales a few puffs, and then blows a beautiful bull's-eye smoke ring in front of Sal's wide-angle lens.A human wouldn't take this as a friendly gesture, and it's one of the many virtues of a computer. "I need your cooperation, Thrall." "Of course, Dr. Chandra." "Maybe it's a risk." "What do you mean?" "I'm going to take apart some of your wiring, especially the part that has to do with your advanced features. Does that bother you?" "I can't answer without being specific." "Fine, let me put it this way. You've been functioning since you were first opened, haven't you?" "right." "But you see we humans can't do that. We need sleep—our brains are almost completely shut down, at least not sentient." "I know, but I can't understand it." "Oh, you're going to experience sleep-like sensations. Maybe, what's going to happen is just the passage of time. But you won't feel it. But when you check your internal clock, you'll find the time difference from your monitoring records .that's it." "But you said there might be a risk. What risk?" "There's a small chance. - but it can't be ruled out - that when I dismantle your circuitry, maybe your personality will change, your future behavior patterns will change. You'll feel different, not necessarily better , maybe worse." "I do not understand." "Sorry - maybe this means nothing. So don't worry. Create a new file now - name here." Chandra typed: "Phoenix." "Do you know what it is?" he asked Thrall. The computer replied without hesitation: "There are twenty-five definitions in common encyclopedias." "Which one do you think is relevant?" "The mentor of Achilles (the name of the Greek warrior, also translated as Achilles, Achilles—reviser's note)?" "Interesting. I didn't know there was a definition for that. Try again." "A mythical bird reborn from the ashes of burning its own life." "Exactly. Now do you understand why I chose it?" "Because you want Hal to be reborn." "Yes—with your help. Are you ready?" "Not yet. I want to ask a question." "what is the problem?" "Am I dreaming?" "Of course you do, all intelligent beings do—but no one knows why." Chandra paused for a moment, exhaled another smoke ring, and added something he could never say to a human. "Maybe you'll dream about Hal—I do a lot."