2001: A Space Odyssey by Arthur C. Clarke is a science-fiction book that does not just focus on science, but also on other topics in society. The book split into three main parts: the monolith with the apes, the monolith on the moon, and David Bowman's exploration of space. In the first part, a monolith appears in the ancient times before humans near a family of apes that coexists with the environment. However, the arrival of the monolith changes the power that apes have over their environment. The monolith starts training the apes how to use tools by hypnotizing them, and soon enough, the apes start using bones and stones to hunt, kill predators, and assert dominance over their world. The second part of the novel introduces a man named Dr. Heywood Floyd, who is called for a top secret mission to the moon in the year 1999. When he gets there, Dr. Floyd is told that there is a monolith buried under the moon. The monolith is uncovered on the moon and starts to send a signal to an unknown place. The third part of the book begins two years later in 2001 (the title of the book). There is a ship called Discovery One housing Dr. David Bowman, a few other scientists, and an AI machine and controller of the ship called HAL 9000, with the goal to reach the end of the signal from the monolith on the moon. However, when HAL 9000 starts destroying parts of the ship and killing all the other scientists, Dr. David Bowman shuts the HAL 9000 down and manually flies himself to the point where the the signal from the moon monolith is sent. When he reaches the place where the signal connects, which is a moon that revolves around Saturn, Bowman sees another universe of stars. He enters this universe and suddenly an Earthly room, where he goes through the human changes of time. After "dying" on the bed, Bowman turns into an all powerful baby, specifically the Star Child, and looks over Earth, pondering his next move.
2001: A Space Odyssey is a letter to the future of science, but also one to humans. It is definitely true that we humans did not find a monolith on the moon in 1999 or found a way to travel to Saturn. However, Clarke fictionalizes or guesses what future, and even the past, look in a different set of lenses. One of the most notable is the AI structure HAL 9000. I was quite surprised that AI was integrated into the book, a time when the concept of an artificial intelligence did not clearly exist in the world. The fact that HAL 9000 was the destroyer of many functions on the ship and murders Bowman's colleagues portrays the fear in the status quo that AI will control and overpower us. Additionally, HAL 9000 is not designed as a robot, one of the main representations of AI, but instead similar to the non-physical forms of AI we see today, through our phones and devices. The fact that something that we cannot physically see or touch can control our surroundings and our lives is what Clarke warns to his readers.
Another idea that Clarke builds in the book is the powerlessness and insignificance of humankind. At the beginning of the book, Clarke proposes an answer to use of tools in human evolution: the monolith. Unlike the well-known theory of evolution (the survival of the fittest), the monolith is responsible for the beginnings of human dominance. Later in the book, when Dr. Floyd and the crew find the monolith, everyone reacts with fear and confusion due to the mystery behind the large object. The fact that an unnatural object determined the course of humankind and how later humans are unable to discern what the object is signifies the inferiority of humans in the universe, according to Clarke. At the end of the book, the aliens responsible for the creation and the foundation of the monoliths reference the placement of the monoliths as an "experiment" in observation of the creatures, especially humans, on Earth. These aliens possess no physical boundaries; they are only souls that exist, a state that Bowman reaches at the very end of the book. By posing a suggestion that something more powerful than us, Clarke poses a message that we humans must not see us as the most capable beings in the universe. Instead, we should humble ourselves and be aware of the limited capabilities that our species hold.
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