HAL 9000, Siri & Alexa

It's been 50 years since the release of Stanley Kubrick's groundbreaking 2001: A Space Odyssey. Few films, especially science fiction movies, have held up so well.

The New York Times reported recently the backstory about the voice of the HAL 9000 computer.

"The story of the creation of HAL's performance –– the result of a last-minute collaboration between the idiosyncratic director Stanley Kubrick and the veteran Canadian actor Douglas Rain –– has been somewhat lost in the 50 years since the film's release in April 1968. As has its impact: Artificial intelligence has borrowed from the HAL persona, and now, unwittingly, a light hint of Canadianness resides in our phones and interactive devices."

Actor Martin Balsam, Kubrick's fellow Bronx native, was originally cast and recorded as the voice of the HAL 9000 and it was only near the end of production that Kubrick decided a less "colloquially American voice" was needed.

"Kubrick had heard Mr. Rain's voice in the 1960 documentary 'Universe,' a film he watched at least 95 times. 'I think he's perfect,' Kubrick wrote to a colleague in a letter preserved in the director's archive. 'The voice is neither patronizing, nor is it intimidating, nor is it pompous, overly dramatic or actorish. Despite this, it is interesting.'

And that is why we now dutifully talk and respond to our discursive AI overlords like Siri and Alexa.