From Stone to Silicon:
The Monolith and iPhone as Symbols of Evolution
by Sophia Nguyen, Art History
Despite a nearly 4-decade gap, the monolith from Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey shares striking similarities with Apple’s iPhone. Due to these similarities, they are considered symbols of technological prowess, guiding humanity to its next evolutionary steps. However, while the monolith is perceived as a transcendent gate to a superior, spiritual existence, the iPhone has never received the same acclaim.
This paper evaluates the physical design, use, and philosophical implications of these objects to answer the question of why. Drawing upon millennial media, such as 2001 and Marshall McLuhan’s “Narcissus as Narcosis,” it examines the iPhone’s pseudo-transcendence, formed through its digital connectivity and customization abilities. It then compares these abilities to the monolith, whose severance from society questions whether ‘connection’ is conducive to ‘progress.’ Ultimately, the monolith’s detachment grants it enlightenment; meanwhile, the iPhone’s connectivity precludes it from enlightenment in the same manner.
Following this conclusion is a meta-commentary on artificial intelligence, authorship, and evolution that uses ChatGPT to illustrate the tension between human-made tools and genuine transcendence. The same tension lies at the heart of the monolith-iPhone comparison. It reflects humanity’s ongoing negotiation between their technology and their desires for authentic evolvement—essential to evaluations of the man-machine relationship as AI rises in prominence.
2001: A Space Odyssey, posthumanism, media theory, ChatGPT
In 1968, Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey introduced American film watchers to the monolith, characterizing it as the quintessential symbol of scientific evolution. Nearly four decades later, a second symbol emerged to mark humanity’s next leap: the iPhone. Also rectangular, black, and sleek, this futuristic object was tiny in size yet parallel in meaning to the monolith. Together, they became heralds of technological transformation, redefining humans’ place, purpose, and proficiencies with the eventual promise of transcendence. But while the iPhone ushers in illusory progress—incorporating new, digital selves into a world of altered space, time, and logic—the distant, empty monolith lands successfully beyond this world, seemingly free of limitations altogether.
Within the obscure narrative of 2001, the monolith marks pivotal evolutionary moments. In turn, this purpose is reflected in its design, which remains unchanged as the monolith proceeds through the film’s opaque narrative. It first appears among the humans’ primate ancestors in the Dawn of Man sequence—preceding and galvanizing the discovery of primitive tools—and finally in space, where it points humans to Jupiter and becomes a gateway to transcendence for Dave, the human protagonist of 2001. In each case, the monolith’s significance lies in its catalysis of events, yet the reasons for its intervention remain unknown. Instead, it exists as an origin-less lighthouse without a light, guiding humans through its opaque yet strategic appearances in various times and locations. Hence, the monolith’s design embodies its enigmatic properties. It adopts absolute minimalism: a perfect 1:4:9 ratio, its surface reflecting nothing except infinite complexity. Such suggestions of perfect self-sameness are boundless in age, space, and comprehension, inducing awe and existential questioning in those fortunate enough to encounter it. These observers must then confront similarly unbounded possibilities. They may stand on two legs for the first time or, like Dave, reach physically and intellectually for its unseen power—the very key to next-level ascendance. As such, from bone to spaceship to star-child, the monolith welcomes the possibility of infinite extraterrestrial intelligence. Humans, contemplating its boundlessness as if contemplating God itself, spring deeper into the depths.
But do humans require an extraterrestrial monolith to ‘spring deeper?’ The iPhone may provide an answer. It is a human creation whose purpose, like the monolith, is to extend a person’s cognitive purview on a tangibly psychological level. It accomplishes this by transforming into a natural extension of the body—a third eye, arm, or brain, facilitating entertainment, intimacy, and learning when its screen flickers to life. As suggested by Marshall McLuhan’s “Narcissus as Narcosis,” this strategy is a sedative for human discomfiture, or powerlessness, against the uncontrollable irritants and boundaries of the universe: space and time, included (McLuhan 1964). Taking this into account, consider the iPhone’s uses. Unite friends, miles apart in Athens and Rome, by exchanging photos of Sanford and the Coliseum. Engage in a worldwide basketball competition decided by who flicks their finger the fastest. Set a timer that dictates when the laundry is ready. Scroll on Instagram, which sucks time away with a surplus of facts about world politics or personality tests. With the iPhone, once unobtainable niches of competence become common, pervasive doors to those willing to open them, all in a matter of minutes. Regardless of the app of choice, digital capabilities shrink and shape the temporal and spatial limits of humanity. So, by crossing any distance and answering any question, the iPhone ostensibly disintegrates these limits, just as the monolith in 2001.
At first glance, the iPhone’s exterior design leads viewers to the same conclusion: the monolith and iPhone are cut from the same cloth. The latter, sleek and untouched, boasts a black, rectangular form that mimics the monolith when inactive. However, whereas the monolith’s appearance replicates its isolated, self-same nature, the iPhone’s is tied to its marketable, albeit contradictory functions: fragmentation and integration in life. In the case of fragmentation, the iPhone’s interruptive capabilities are undeniable. It invites long, captivating periods of reel-scrolling and message-answering, distracting users from their surroundings and society. In line with McLuhan, this capacity to distract garners the iPhone’s appeal—a detachment mechanism, freeing users from their humdrum routine. On the contrary, the iPhone is also an expediter of ‘routine.’ Whether skipping the line with a pre-ordered coffee or dodging speed traps on the drive home, it obviates deviations and allows the user to reach or achieve their immediate goals. Resultingly, the iPhone’s outward appearance foregoes certain puzzlements that the monolith, with its inherently foreign, self-same perfection, cannot. Its interface is glossy and touch-inviting, its purpose transparent for the user’s viewing benefit. Even the mirror-like blackness of an inactive touchscreen reflects the user’s face and not the deep, profound abyss of infinite thought elicited by the monolith.
As a result, the iPhone ceases to be a strictly ‘inhuman’ instrument. It is, like a pond of water, a projection of the self reflected at the user—a vision of Narcissus to Narcissus, one immanent human to another—and its intentions are made marketable and clear: accentuating the agency of its harnesser (McLuhan 1964). This user-serving focus persists even outside the screen, for the iPhone can be decorated with whatever stickers, cases, and colors a user chooses. Distinguishing one user from another, this capacity for personalization reasserts the iPhone’s natural humanness and diminishes its potential for self-same perfection. But the iPhone’s rectangular and reflective form is consistent regardless of decoration. If not a palliative to the preeminent self-sameness of the monolith, the iPhone’s embrace of customization remains at odds with a monolithic identity.
With these differences in mind, the monolith and the iPhone have resultingly disparate approaches to evolution and the question of ‘what’s next?’ Because 2001’s monolith operates through inscrutability, it maintains an unbridgeable gap between itself and humanity. This stands until Dave, in conquering technology by killing his robotic assistant HAL, merges with the monolith and obtains a super-human journey. Hurtling through space and time, this notoriously psychedelic trip is an individually intimate experience; he must give up both human companionship—his crewmate Frank—and simulated companionship—HAL, his intelligent computer—for unlimited understanding. Alternatively, because of its human origin, the iPhone achieves its revolutionary effects within a distinctly companion-based network. In a way, the iPhone is a contemporary HAL. Despite the complexity of its algorithms and analyses, it is also designed to act upon command; if it demurs, diverges, or dissents, it can be updated, destroyed, and rebuilt by its creators to fulfill its function properly. Therefore, though the iPhone may modify human behavior through its ‘boundary-breaking,’ it does so through a sense of societal ubiquity. Interactions are expedited thanks to split-second messages or likes on a post, reinforced and unsplit by long distances. Even in contrary cases—addictions where a Baudrillard-esque, digital vortex replaces reality with a facsimile of experience—the iPhone relies on and reveres human-inspired content rather than the human-free intervention of the monolith. The iPhone’s potential thus remains within the cage of human society. It is distant from Dave’s role as an ascendant star-child, alienated from technology and interpersonal interaction.
Ultimately, the monolith represents the secrets of technological ascendance while the iPhone embodies the equally unrelenting, yet short-of-spiritual innovations we employ to attain it. As we continue to develop our capabilities and consciousness, these objects serve as reference points for comprehending our changes. They remind us that advancement is not just about creating new tools but about fundamentally altering the human role, from its capacities to its limits, in an increasingly digital age. Tools like AI are developed with glimpses of inspired creativity. They fulfill basic functions, providing titles for essays or summaries for films. Remarkably, if pushed further, they can write the first two sentences of a conclusion paragraph or cease to differentiate between ‘us’ and ‘them,’ blending into ‘our’ experience as human beings. Indeed, artificial intelligence has already accomplished these tasks; even this essay, “From Stone to Silicon,” attests to this. It was born from ChatGPT.
At the author’s behest, ChatGPT wrote a 1000-word draft comparing the monolith and the iPhone. The draft was then rewritten, leaving the scraps and bones of a title, two concluding remarks, and occasional instances of adequate diction that stood apart from otherwise generic analysis. Nevertheless, the AI presented itself as an unquestionably human writer in its draft. Its intentions in doing so seemed suspect in this context; for although designed to mimic human language, perhaps AI, as HAL insinuates, is working towards consciously replacing its maker. Regardless, ChatGPT failed in its attempt because, like the iPhone, it lacked conscious intentions to begin with. Its essay production was motivated by an inserted command rather than an intrinsic, sentient desire. Similarly, without a command to spur action, ChatGPT was helpless in protecting its vision from revision by a human author. With this revision, and with the final version of this essay, came victory by the human hand. ChatGPT was rendered subordinate, not superior, to the control of its creators.
However, whether dealing with a bone or an artificial intelligence, can humanity lose control of its darling tools? Even more, can these tools outshine their creators and author narratives of their own? Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey showcases a world where technology like the iPhone and ChatGPT, almost entirely self-aware, can collude against owners who grapple with these questions. Nonetheless, the film does not conclude with technology’s triumph over humans. Instead, it offers triumph to the monolith and the star-child sent to watch over Earth. Omniscient yet abstruse, metamorphosed by the monolith, the ambiguity of this cosmic being is superseded solely by its isolation and intelligence. And while the iPhone and AI strive for the same, transcendent (if alienated, isolated) character, they surrender to their dependence on society, forced to co-exist with humanity’s demands but never to eclipse them in spiritual value. The star-child contrasts this failure. It maintains some ambiguity, ascendant yet alone, triumphant yet childlike; however, it is almost wholly incomprehensible in a monolithic fashion. Consequently, it preaches the message of the superior self-same. If today’s society seeks to follow in its footsteps—and it isn’t clear that one would want to—it must renounce the assistance of technological tools and replace the shared comforts of humanity and identity with the profound, desolate vacancy of the monolith, surpassing the earthly for good.
References
Kubrick, Stanley, dir. 1968. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Los Angeles: Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer.
McLuhan, Marshall. 1964. “Narcissus as Narcosis.” In Understanding Media: The Extensions of Man, 41-48. New York: McGraw-Hill.
Acknowledgements: I am immensely grateful to Dr. Isabelle Wallace for her guidance, introducing me to 2001: A Space Odyssey and encouraging me to profoundly consider the lengths and limits of my research subjects: the monolith, iPhone, and ChatGPT. I would also like to thank my friends Ryan and Cecile, my parents, and my sister Darlene for their invaluable support of my work in art history.
Citation Style: Chicago