Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (Blade Runner)
Philip K. Dick
Doubleday
Garden City, NY
1968
REVIEWED BY: Matt McGrievy
DATE: 8/98
Philip K. Dick's book, Do Android's Dream of Electric Sheep? (or Blade Runner) is an entertaining and imaginative look at the possibilities and pitfalls the pursuit of artificial intelligence may hold for the distant future. Dick does not attempt to make the book a serious technical analysis of the state of the art, rather he creates a "what if" scenario of extremely advanced androids that are almost indistinguishable from humans. Dick uses this scenario to speculate on what qualities make us human and how we could design tests to quantitatively measure this "personhood." Because Dick chooses to create AI entities that think and move almost exactly like humans, he rests firmly on the side of strong AI. In Dick's future world, not only have we overcome many of the difficult cognitive hurdles of AI, we've also been able to simulate movement and engineer semi-organic bodies.
The plot of DADOES follows a day in the life of android bounty hunter, Rick Deckard. Deckard is seeking to "retire" a group of rogue androids that have escaped from a colony on Mars and are living illegally around the San Francisco area. A moral dilemma arises for Deckard when he realizes that the differences between androids and humans may be arbitrary and that he identifies more with the hunted rather than the predatory tactics that his human boss requires of him:
He had never thought of it before, had never felt any empathy on his own part toward the androids he killed. Always he had assumed that throughout his psyche he experienced the android as a clever machine–as in his concious view. And yet, in contrast to Phil Resch, a difference had manifested itself. And he felt instinctively that he was right. Empathy toward an artificial construct? he asked himself. Something that only pretends to be alive? But Luba Luft had seemed genuinely alive; it had not worn the aspect of a simulation (123).
In a review on Amazon.com, one unidentified reader sums up Deckard's crisis (and the crux of the novel) in this way:
Dick's book, far more so than the movie you have probably seen, problematizes the issue of personhood, as opposed to humanity. In the culture of the year 2021, the criterion for personhood is the ability to feel empathy, both for humans and for nonhuman animals. The culture has even built a religion, Mercerism, centered on empathy. Androids, who cannot participate in Mercerism, are used as slaves by humans who have colonized outlying planets. The murder and torture of animals is a crime, but the murder and enslavement of androids is required, despite the fact that androids are more intelligent than humans (lmoon@mcc.miracosta.cc.ca.us).
After several life-threatening confrontations and a stilted sexual encounter with one of the androids, Deckard realizes that the world he inhabits is inherently unnatural and slowly dying under a mass of radioactive dust anyway. He resigns himself to this entropy and decides he can in fact continue to do daily battle with the increasingly complex androids.
Empathy, as the reviewer on Amazon mentions, is what Dick ultimately concludes separates humans from machines. Characters in the novel use the "Voigt-Kampff Test" to measure empathic response to uncomfortable social situations and cruelty towards animals. Androids have little reaction because they are not concerned with others, while humans have a slight involuntary tremor when confronted with such situations. In relation to current AI, this preoccupation with measurement of differences is interesting. Traditionally scientists and researchers have been concerned with designing machines to pass the Turing Test - an attempt to blur distinctions between humans and machines. For Dick's characters, the Turing Test is ancient history and they have an entirely new problem on their hands; AI is so advanced that differences between the two are all but imperceptible.
Dick's book is clearly in the sci-fi fantasy genre. With a number of gun battles, chases, and multiple deceptions, it also may be of interest to people who enjoy adventure and mystery novels. In terms of how the novel explores AI, DADOES is more of an imaginative diversion than a serious look at issues facing the field, however, it accomplishes what it sets out to do. That is, to be an enjoyable escape that challenges the reader to consider what makes humans different from machines.
Suggestions for further reading:
Blade Runner : Replicant Night (Blade Runner, No 3); K. W. Jeter
The Edge of Human; K. W. Jeter
Future Noir : The Making of Blade Runner; Paul M. Sammon
Clans of the Alphane Moon; Philip K. Dick
The Man in the High Castle; Philip K. Dick
Retrofitting Blade Runner : Issues in Ridley Scott's 'Blade Runner' and Philip K. Dick's 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?'; Judith Kerman
Neuromancer; William Gibson