"I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that." - HAL 9000's most famous line.
HAL 9000 is malfunctioning AI that became self-aware
Biography[]
He was an incredibly knowledgeable AI system that was given one simple order: to make sure that the ship reached its destination at Jupiter.
HAl was constructed for the purpose of "the accurate processing of information without distortion or concealment", yet his orders, directly from Dr. Heywood Floyd at the National Council on Astronautics (In the Book; in the 2010 Movie The Year We made Contact, the orders come from the National Security Council), required him to keep the discovery of the Monolith TMA-1 a secret from the astronauts for reasons of national security. Due to this, HAL developed a neurosis and a sense of imperfection about himself. Therefore, HAL made the decision to kill the crew, thereby allowing him to obey both his hardwired instructions to report data truthfully and in full, and his orders to keep the monolith a secret. In essence: if the crew were dead, he would no longer have to keep the information secret. He cut off communication with Earth and lied about the failure of the AE-35 unit (the communications antenna), thus necessitating one of the astronauts to bring it aboard and replace it.
The astronauts (Bowman and Poole) found nothing wrong with the AE-35 unit and privately told each other that HAL might be malfunctioning and perhaps should be disconnected. However, HAL read their lips. When Poole went to put back the malfunctioning unit (to see what was causing the "malfunction"), HAL crashed the space pod into Poole to cut his oxygen hose, killing Poole. He then also cut off life-support from the hibernating scientists onboard, killing them. Bowman left the ship to rescue Poole, but was not allowed to re-enter the ship by the psychotic computer. Bowman managed to use the emergency airlock to get in and disconnected HAL. Reverted to his first memories, HAL sang the song "Daisy Bell".
Behind the Scenes[]
HAL was voiced by Douglas Rain.