AI inspired by the evil HAL-9000 successfully keeps astronauts alive for four hours

The supercomputer HAL 9000, which is best remembered for killing astronauts in the '2001: A Space Odyssey' has been recreated by scientists to aid astronauts in space. The new prototype, which has been developed by Texan company TRACLabs Inc, has successfully controlled a simulated planetary base for hours and can display information such as life support and robot status. In the movie, HAL 9000 is the artificial intelligence controlling the nuclear-powered Discovery One spaceship. In the novel by science-fiction legend Arthur C. Clarke written alongside the film, the computer is described as capable of talking with astronauts'in the perfect idiomatic English he had learned during the fleeting weeks of his electronic childhood.' Artificial intelligence researcher Pete Bonasso at TRACLabs had first saw '2001: A Space Odyssey' in his senior year at West Point university, where he programmed the academy's lone computer to play a virtual version of pool, and since then has set about trying to create something just like it.