SIMONSON Hello, Dave. I think we may be on to an explanation of the trouble with the Hal 9000 computer. We believe it all started about two months ago when you and Frank interrogated the computer about the Mission. You may have forgotten it, but we've been running through all the monitor tapes. Do you remember this?
2001: A Space Odyssey (1968)
SIMONSON
A screenplay character in 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968).
- lines
- 2
- words
- 312
- scenes
- 1
- dialogue
- 3.7%
- avg words / line
- 156
- shortest / longest
- 57 / 255
Sample dialogue
Well, I'm afaid Hal was lying. He had been programmed to lie about this one subject for security reasons which we'll explain later. The true purpose of the Mission was to have been explained to you by Mission Commander Kaminsky, on his revival. Hal knew this and he knew the actual mission, but he couldn't tell you the truth when you challenged him. Under orders from earth he was forced to lie. In everything except this he had the usual reinforced truth programming. We believe his truth programming and the instructions to lie, gradually resulted in an incompatible conflict, and facedc with this dilemman, he developed, for want of a better description, neurotic symptoms. It's not difficult to suppose that these symptoms would centre on the communication link with Earth, for he may have blamed us for his incompatible programming. Following this lin of thought, we suspected that the last straw for him was the possibility of disconnection. Since he became operational, he had never known unconsciousness. It must have seemed the equivalent to death. At this point, he, presumably, took whatever actions he thought appropriate to protect himself from what must have seemed to him to be his human tormentors. If I can speak in human terms, I don't think we can blame him too much. We have ordered him to disobey his conscience. Well, that's it. It's very speculative, but we think it is a possible explanation. Anyway, good luck on the rest of the Mission and I'm giving you back to Bernard.
scene 15 — INT. SPACE STATION – LOUNGESIMONSON Hello, Dave. I think we may be on to an explanation of the trouble with the Hal 9000 computer. We believe it all started about two months ago when you and Frank interrogated the computer about the Mission. You may have forgotten it, but we've been running through all the monitor tapes. Do you remember this?
scene 15 — INT. SPACE STATION – LOUNGE
Bookends
Well, I'm afaid Hal was lying. He had been programmed to lie about this one subject for security reasons which we'll explain later. The true purpose of the Mission was to have been explained to you by Mission Commander Kaminsky, on his revival. Hal knew this and he knew the actual mission, but he couldn't tell you the truth when you challenged him. Under orders from earth he was forced to lie. In everything except this he had the usual reinforced truth programming. We believe his truth programming and the instructions to lie, gradually resulted in an incompatible conflict, and facedc with this dilemman, he developed, for want of a better description, neurotic symptoms. It's not difficult to suppose that these symptoms would centre on the communication link with Earth, for he may have blamed us for his incompatible programming. Following this lin of thought, we suspected that the last straw for him was the possibility of disconnection. Since he became operational, he had never known unconsciousness. It must have seemed the equivalent to death. At this point, he, presumably, took whatever actions he thought appropriate to protect himself from what must have seemed to him to be his human tormentors. If I can speak in human terms, I don't think we can blame him too much. We have ordered him to disobey his conscience. Well, that's it. It's very speculative, but we think it is a possible explanation. Anyway, good luck on the rest of the Mission and I'm giving you back to Bernard.