Non-Clown Clown I.J.Good
“HAL” of 2001: A Space Odyssey; and its Non-Clown Clown Source its Non-Clown Clown Source
“Alan Turing … had caught Good sleeping on the floor while on duty during his first night shift. At first, Turing thought Good was ill, but he was cross when Good explained that he was just taking a short nap because he was tired. For days afterwards, Turing would not deign to speak to Good, and he left the room if Good walked in. The new recruit only won Turing’s respect after he solved the bigram tables problem. During a subsequent night shift, when there was no more work to be done, it dawned on Good that there might be another chink in the German indicating system…
… However, while he was sleeping before returning for another shift, he dreamed that the order had been reversed; the general settings had been applied before the Offizier settings. Next day he found that the message had yet to be read, so he applied the theory which had come to him during the night. It worked; he had broken the code in his sleep”
“He later said about his arrival in Virginia (from Britain) in 1967 to start teaching at VPI, where he taught from 1967 to 1994:
I arrived in Blacksburg in the seventh hour of the seventh day of the seventh month of the year seven in the seventh decade, and I was put in Apartment 7 of Block 7…all by chance”
“Good’s authorship of treatises such as his 1965 “Speculations Concerning the First Ultraintelligent Machine” and “Logic of Man and Machine” made him the obvious person for…” for Stanley Kubrick’s supercomputer consultant for 2001: A Space Oydessey.
The Clown or Non-Clown Clown of that movie, 2001, was HAL. “HAL (Heuristically Programmed Algorithmic Computer) is a sentient artifical general intelligence computer that controls the systems of the Discovery One spacecraft and interacts with the ship’s astronaut crew.”… ” HAL speaks in a soft, calm voice and a conversational manner, and engages convivially with crewmen David Bowman and Frank Poole until he begins to malfunction.”… AS THIS VIDEO INTERVIEW SHOWS, Good himself, like HAL “speaks in a soft, calm voice and a conversational manner, and engages convivially”. Is it possible that Kubrick based the clown HAL somewhat on the Non-Clown Clown I.J.Good?
In this 1992 video, the main interviewer David Kahn is AWESOME and extremely brilliant and keeps steady watchful eye on all of Good’s reporting/memories. Although a large part of the interview especially the first half at least is about details of the “Enigma” project that likely helped to end WWII by at least 2 years. Kahn, the interviewer is an expert on the history of “Enigma”. But here he has a fine specimen of a key participant. I.J.Good was then instrumental leading us all towards AI. With Kubrick’s film 2001, and HAL and Good as supercomputer consultant all ‘evolving’ us towards AI. The later part of the interview the younger interviewer,, Karen A. Frenkel, fully comes into her own expertise!! This is 1992 but she was well onto artificial intelligence and opens whole new delightful aspects of I.J.Good and his fab humorous intellect. Then K.A. Frenkel spends time just with Donald Michie and he is also a delight and brilliant.
See interview link below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6p3mhkNgRXs
From Paul Green “I.J ‘Jack’ Good was a research fellow at Trinity College, Oxford, where I was a student, reading Eng.Lit in the mid-sixties. He gave some very stimulating talks, where I first heard the term ‘ultra-inteliigent machine. He also introduced me to my first wife, Janina Greenfield. In the early 70s I interviewed him for a CBC Radio programme ‘The Future of Divination’ – he was curious about ESP but was ultimately sceptical and demolished th claims made by C.D Broad and others. He was also interested in connections between science and the arts and had a piece devised with artist Martine Vite in ‘Cybernetic Serendipity’ an exhibition at the ICA in London in 1968. The Bletchley Park connection became public much later. A remarkable man.” (online fb December 9, 2023)
I.J.Good likely in his 80’s
“Now this is a pure coincidence, because HAL’s name is an acronym of heuristic and algorithmic, the two methods of computer programming … an almost inconceivable coincidence. It would have taken a cryptographer to have noticed that.” – Stanley Kubrick – and here’s the cryptographer (I.J. Good) that SK hired to help him design HAL. What a coincidence! (online fb from Robin Habron, December 9, 2023)o
On the other hand, here is another viewpoint on HAL. https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/30/movies/hal-2001-a-space-odyssey-voice-douglas-rain.html
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