Topic 10 - What is Human?

Lecture – Blade Runner: More Human than Human

The 1982 film Blade Runner directed by Ridley Scott is an adaptation of Philip K. Dick’s novel ‘Do androids dream of electric sheep’. Set in 2019 Los Angeles, the narrative places the characters in a world ruined by economic and environmental exploitation. Unlike many other films in the science-fiction genre, Blade Runner explicitly focuses on the question of ‘what does it mean to be human’. The film explores this question by presenting artificial life in the form of the ‘replicants’ which aim to determine what aspects of humanity define humans. The parallels between man and machine are presented which the film essentially asking what makes humans different from machines. As described in the film, replicants were designed to be ‘more human than human’ in order to create the perfect being. This is conveyed in almost a biblical sense where the Tyrell Corporation has created a being which they believe is superior to humans. Additionally, the notion of emotions in machines is explored through the evolution of the replicant’s artificial intelligence. The development of human emotion in the replicants proposes that the divide between humans and machines in the future may decrease as the machines become more human than human.

Reading - An exploration of what it is to be human

The novel ‘Do androids dream of electric sheep’ by Philip K. Dick explores the notion of what makes humans human. As the basis for the film Blade Runner, the novel follows the same analysis of the qualities which make humans human. A key aspect of humanity mentioned in the analysis is empathy which asserts that an artificial life form would be required to develop a conscience. The measurement or analysis of emotions in this context provides the foundation for determining real from the simulated. As a point of comparison, the author proposes that if machines possessed emotions, what distinction could be drawn between them and humans. Would machines evolve from machine to our current definition of ‘human’?