Louis "Lou" Gerstman (April 22, 1930 – March 17, 1992) was an American neuropsychologist best known for his work in speech synthesis.
[1] He was a co-inventor, along with John Kelly, of the computer portrayed as HAL 9000 in the film 2001: A Space Odyssey.
In 1950s and early 1960s, Gerstman was a researcher and consultant for Western Electric, Bell Labs, Haskins Laboratories, and Columbia University during which he worked on computer speech processing to aide stroke recovery and learning disabilities.
At the latter, he specialized in speech processes and disorders and oversaw doctoral programs in experimental cognition.
[3] The program was intended to be used in Kubrick's 2001, but the two parties eventually parted ways and the film crew employed an actor to read the lines.