Reaching Toward the Monolith:
Technology and the Violence of Progress in 2001
by Santiago Pollitzer, Art History
This essay explores the connections between Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey and the modern iPhone, focusing on their shared role as enigmatic technological forces that drive human evolution. Particularly, this text is concerned with the role of AI and its homogenizing, alienating, influence on human culture. Initiated as an AI-generated draft, later revised and critically engaged with by the author, this essay becomes meta commentary on artificial intelligence itself, framing AI as a monolithic force akin to Kubrick’s vision. Through a visual analysis of the film, especially the monolith’s influence on pre-human, human, and post-human states, this essay engages with philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s concepts of progress and involution, here understood within the context of technological determinism. The monolith’s catalytic presence, from the hominid’s first encounter to Dave Bowman’s dissolution into the Star Child, reveals a trajectory of progress marked by violence and subjugation, with an ultimate return to sameness. The iPhone, much like HAL, the AI within the film, operates within this lineage. It is an omnipresent tool that structures contemporary life while subtly eroding individuality. This essay examines the tension between technological advancement and existential loss, positing AI as both an instrument of progress and a harbinger of human obsolescence.
monolith, AI, Baudrillard, violence, homogenization, progress
Last semester, my professor gave me an unusual assignment: write an essay comparing the monolith from Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey with today’s ubiquitous iPhone. To make matters stranger, she required that we use ChatGPT… at least at first. AI was supposed to write our first draft, which we were tasked with revising. This class was on the idea of the millennium, the year 2000, so 2001 was obviously of interest for the way it framed that year as a cataclysmic one. But no less importantly, it allowed us to grapple with a problem that, although diagnosed by Kubrick in 1968, is ever more urgent today: artificial intelligence. In the course of this strange drafting process—one that for me as an aspiring writer is personal and deeply emotional—I felt myself conversing with an alien force. What follows is a strange transcript of that conversation, written by ChatGPT, and rewritten, with added commentary, by me. The italicized text, emphasizing my authorial voice, makes visible the act of rewriting, and more importantly makes the roman text a clear subject of ChatGPT’s influence.
In Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey, the monolith is an enigmatic force that seems to catalyze human evolution, framing the trajectory from pre-human sameness to individuation and human consciousness, to an alien, post-human state. Its visual presentation, from the stark, black geometry towering over the hominids to its final appearance in the sterile, surreal bedroom “beyond the infinite,” emphasizes its transformative role. When considering the iPhone, it appears that the similarities are outweighed by important differences. The iPhone has a clear origin, campaign, and an ultimate goal of profit. The monolith is ambivalent and impenetrable, a canvas perfect for projection. Nevertheless, their functions seem related: progress for progress’s sake. Both the monolith and the iPhone ultimately represent technology’s paradoxical role in human development: they drive change and evolution yet lead to homogenization and alienation. Indeed, they are connected by the phenomenon of AI, for which, I will argue, the monolith is partially responsible. Through the visual language of 2001: A Space Odyssey, the monolith serves as a reflection of French philosopher Jean Baudrillard’s framework of pre-human, human, and post-human states, illustrating humanity’s evolution and eventual return to sameness, while the iPhone, as a contemporary parallel, embodies the transformative power of technology, also marked by violence and alienation.1
The ape’s first encounter with the monolith unfolds in the film’s “Dawn of Man” sequence, where Kubrick uses stark contrasts and dynamic compositions to depict the transition from pre-human to human existence. The monolith’s appearance is preceded by images of a barren desert, a flat, featureless expanse of ochre and beige tones, where the hominids live in a state of primal clannish sameness. They move in crouched, repetitive patterns, their bodies blending with the environment, evoking a Baudrillardian notion of the pre-human condition: timeless, undifferentiated, and without desire. The sudden arrival of the monolith, a towering black rectangle framed against a pale sky, breaks this stasis.
Can a connection be drawn between the monolith’s appearance and the advent of AI? Not that ChatGPT could see. But as I revised a paper first authored by AI, it became clear to me: AI has arrived as if a benevolent agent of progressive change, as unknowable and incomprehensible as Kubrick’s monolith.
Kubrick emphasizes the monolith’s otherworldly quality through low angle shots that dwarf the hominids, who tentatively approach it, their bodies stiff with awe and hesitation. The reflective smooth surface of the monolith contrasts sharply with the craggy textures of the rocky landscape, underscoring its alien nature and suggesting its role as a disruptive force. The hominids’ reaction to the monolith visually signals the beginning of their evolution. As one of the hominids reaches out, Kubrick lingers on the gesture, the sun glinting off the monolith’s surface as the creature’s fingers hover just short of contact. This moment is both awe-inspiring and unsettling, as the hominid’s upward reach mirrors later human acts of reverence or ambition, an echo of Michelangelo’s Creation of Adam, reimagined as the genesis of violence and subjugation. Shortly after this contact, the hominid discovers how to use the bone as a tool—a development captured through rapid cuts and close-ups of the bone smashing into skeletal remains. The bone, now weaponized, becomes a symbol of progress driven by violence. The transition from pre-human to human is marked not only by technological innovation but also by the capacity for domination and destruction, aligning with Baudrillard’s assertion that difference, desire, and mortality define the human condition.
It is this connection between progress, here understood as the futuristic monolith or Hal’s omnipotence, and violence that makes clear that each evolutionary step is likewise a devolution. In achieving dominance, the apes make clear that violence and alienation is the mark of their survival. The rest of the film is based on this notion; as humans reach further into the future, they find themselves returning to their violent beginnings. However, violence is now arbitrated by the artificial intelligence they have constructed. Dave Bowman, and his crew, become subjugated to the will of the ship’s AI, reduced to a state of dependency, much like our current relationship with the iPhone.
The monolith’s design amplifies this connection to violence. Its stark, featureless geometry offers no clues to its purpose, forcing the hominids to project meaning onto it. The hominids, who model themselves after the monolith’s imposing form, adopt its verticality and will to dominate. This is visually reinforced when Kubrick frames the bone’s flight through the air, slow motion elongating its arc, only to cut, on the bone’s downward fall, to a spacecraft in orbit, an elegant match cut that compresses millennia of human progress into a single moment. A gothic stylization that clearly illustrates that time, in a non-linear manner, is subject to constant return—as Baudrillard describes it, a hairpin curve. Instead of creating a linear path to a utopian future, technological and social changes often end up reproducing earlier forms, albeit in different contexts. Yet, this progress is haunted by its origins in violence, suggesting that the human condition, while marked by innovation, is inseparable from conflict. It seems that today most of humanity is unaware of this dynamic or at least unclear about it. In the film, made in 1968 but set at the turn of the millennium, the AI known as HAL is presented as flawless to the crew, who are ultimately at its mercy, unknowingly subject to its will. HAL is pivotal to the exploration of technological determinism. Its programmed directives—ostensibly designed to assist humanity—ultimately isolate and alienate the astronauts. HAL’s increasing autonomy echoes the same mechanization we see in the trajectory marked by the monolith. This connection is not just metaphorical; it reveals how AI systems, like Hal and ChatGPT, reinforce patterns of homogenization in human experience. While some measure of responsibility can be placed on the crew and, more so, on HAL’s creators, it’s important to recognize that the drive for progress is deeply embedded in our everyday lives. We are constantly bombarded with ways to improve ourselves, both individually and as a society, yet we remain oblivious to the underlying conflicts that propel this progress. ChatGPT, however, failed to recognize this narrative thread. It maintained a neutral, benevolent stance, presenting itself as harmless and helpful. Yet, it does not strike me as a coincidence that ChatGPT, much like HAL, did not reveal its identity and alliance within this conversation.
The monolith’s final appearance in the film’s climax offers a stark visual contrast to its earlier encounter with the hominids, signaling humanity’s transition into a post-human state. As astronaut Dave Bowman finds himself in the stark, white bedroom—at once neo-classical and futuristic—Kubrick crafts a surreal, almost timeless space. Although such points were lost on the disembodied intelligence of ChatGPT, the sterile lighting in this scene eliminates shadows, flattening depth and creating a sense of atemporality, while at the same time resonating with Baudrillard’s notion of the post-human condition as a return to sameness and immortality. Bowman’s body rapidly ages, captured through a series of discontinuous edits that disorient the viewer, visually conveying the collapse of linear time. The monolith stands at the foot of his bed, silent and unmoving, a visual anchor in this liminal space. Its reflective surface absorbs the light, creating an impression of infinite depth that contrasts with the sterile flatness of the room. As Bowman reaches toward the monolith with a trembling hand, the gesture mirrors the hominid’s earlier reach, suggesting a cyclical return to a pre-human state of undifferentiated existence.
The aging Bowman’s encounter with the monolith represents a visual culmination of Baudrillard’s idea of progress as a hairpin curve. Humanity, having reached the apex of its technological progress, finds itself returning to a state that seems eerily similar to its starting point. The monolith, once a catalyst for consciousness, individuation, and difference, now presides over Bowman’s dissolution into the Star Child, a form that transcends individuality. Kubrick’s final shot is a close-up of the Star Child gazing down at Earth. Encased in its translucent sphere, the Star Child embodies immortality and the loss of individuality, aligning with Baudrillard’s vision of the post-human “final solution” via sameness and the erasure of the problem of man. As Baudrillard says, “we must ask if this final solution toward which we unconsciously work is not the secret destination of nature, as well as of all our efforts.”  This unsettling idea—that progress inexorably leads not to differentiation but to the erasure of individuality—resonates with the monolith’s function. The iPhone, while rooted in the human present, similarly pushes society toward a homogenized state. Its ubiquity blurs boundaries between individuals, fostering an interconnectedness that can feel both empowering and alienating, as personal identities are subsumed within the digital collective.
Here, ChatGPT was no help. Instead of connecting the monolith and the iPhone on the basis of involution, it offered platitudes about progress, the benefits of technological innovation for the human present, and more so the human conquest of the future. But, for me, as I rewrote ChatGPT’s original essay, my iPhone ever beside me with its glowing, endlessly artificial light, the iPhone seemed increasingly inseparable from Kubrick’s imagery. Technological consumption has reached a point of excess and infantilization; omnipotent forces present themselves as ambivalent quasi-human, while disguising their origins as a post-human creation. Our dependency on artificiality proves to encase us in an inhuman, alien light, much like the cool glow of an iPhone or the emanation found in the Star Child’s sphere.
For, like the monolith, the iPhone is a sleek, minimalist object that reshapes human perception of space and time, allowing users to remain hyper-connected and supposedly aware of all possible topics. The world, as it appears in this flat box, is a site for pure potential, or at least that is its aim. Yet, its function compresses these dimensions rather than expanding them. The iPhone flattens time into a perpetual present, collapsing geographical and temporal boundaries while reducing individuality to algorithmic sameness. This reduction mirrors the way AI, like ChatGPT, presents itself as neutral, an objective tool, yet behind its surface lies many biases and limitations. While it seems to offer boundless knowledge and creativity, it shapes responses according to programmed patterns, reinforcing a uniformity of thought that stifles complexity and originality. In this sense, ChatGPT, like the monolith, hides its true nature beneath a facade, one of evolution and advancement, though in actuality it leads to greater homogenization, powered by technological determinism. Through its design and function, the iPhone fosters a state of hyperconnectivity that paradoxically deepens alienation, much as the monolith catalyzes both progress and isolation.
Kubrick’s visual treatment of the monolith in 2001 illustrates humanity’s trajectory through pre-human, human, and post-human states. From the hominid’s upward reach to Bowman’s final gesture, the monolith visually embodies humanity’s striving for progress, even as it foreshadows a return to sameness. The iPhone, perhaps the monolith of our time, reflects, as ChatGPT was unable to see, similar tensions, reshaping humanity’s relationship with time, space, and individuality. And, if ChatGPT could see only progress in the iPhone, spitting out sentences declaring its altruistic intentions, it became clear to me that the issue of its relevance to human progress proved a far more sinister reality, one that Kubrick had understood more fully. Both objects, as well as ChatGPT’s role in this text, prompt us to question whether technology moves us forward or back, toward a future of infinite possibility or a timeless void of undifferentiated sameness.
In writing this essay from an original draft by ChatGPT, I thought I might have a leg up, a head start. After all, the hard part —getting something on the page— would be taken care of… But I was surprised; the draft written by ChatGPT lacked evidence and coherent reasoning. It reiterated points with varying words. Subtlety escaped it, as did irony and self-reflection, with one kind of AI reflecting, perhaps protectively, on another. That’s where I will come in, I thought. I will lend this discussion a perspective that could only truly be offered by a human mind. Thoughts that originate only from imagination and spontaneity, not restricted by predictability. I wrote with a certain ease in the revision process because I found inspiration in this idea. However, as I revisited this text yet again, and thought more carefully about connections not just between the monolith and the iPhone, human and artificial intelligence, but also the influences of progress on myself, my smugness was infected with worry. The distinction between the original and my own thoughts on the subject began to soften around the edges. I knew what was mine, but would anyone else? Perhaps italics, I thought, could clarify, as in texts littered with anxiety-ridden emojis. During a small break from writing, I instinctively reached for my iPhone, and I couldn’t help but wonder: am I subject to sameness? Will my thoughts, my words, become subsumed into some larger whole? What will I become in an era of artificial intelligence? In my reach, I began to realize that I was reaching towards a monolith of my own, perhaps unwittingly, like Dave in the film’s final scenes. But maybe, I thought, instead of a single dramatic grasp, there are thousands of little clutches, every day, all the time, for the diminutive and unassuming monolith at our sides. These reaches bring us closer, in infinitesimal increments, to the ambiguous figure of the Star Child.
Bibliography
Baudrillard, Jean. The Vital Illusion. Edited by Julia Witwer. Columbia University Press, 2000.
Kubrick, Stanley, dir. 2001: A Space Odyssey. Produced by Stanley Kubrick. Written by Stanley Kubrick and Arthur C. Clarke. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer, 1968
Acknowledgements: I would like to thank my professor, Isabelle Wallace, for her guidance and insight throughout this project, as well as Lauren Bender, The WIP TA, for her support with the initial draft.
Citation Style: Chicago
- Baudrillard, Jean. The Vital Illusion. Edited by Julia Witwer. Columbia University Press, 2000. https://doi.org/10.7312/baud12100. ↩︎