#do androids dream of electric sheep

[kaneidae]

In lieu of recent events

[balrog-slayer66]

Cover art by Jim Steranko for Marvel Comics' Blade Runner (1982)

[bladesofkyber]

BLADE RUNNER 2049 (2017) | dir. Denis Villeneuve

[auxryn]

So I heard about gen AI chatbots being added to social media and it reminded me of 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep.'

The book is most known for being the inspiration for Blade Runner, but they are very different works. In Blade Runner the Replicant bots became a metaphor for exploited and disposable human lives. In Electric Sheep the Androids are a metaphor for people who lack empathy and humanity, specifically inspired by the Nazis. They may be Philosophical Zombies.

(This portrayal is a bit ableist toward sociopaths and people with empathy problems. So let me say that you can choose to be a good person even without empathy and move on.)

So the Androids are mean and they do nasty things like disprove the humans' favorite religion (not that it matters, ha!) and aren't good at taking care of animals. But it is really hard to tell Androids from real humans. It takes difficult tests to detect them and the companies who make Androids (which may be run entirely by Androids?) keep making new Androids even harder to detect.

So Electric Sheep portrays a world overrun by corporate psychopathy in which genuine human connection is stymied by both the possibility and actuality of Android infiltrators.

In our own real world dystopia, we rely heavily on social media that is filled with bots and scammers of varying sophistication. Corporate actors like Facebook are actively developing newer and 'more human' chatbots to populate our social landscape.

Our corporate overlords don't seem to understand that what we want and need is genuine human contact and connection.

We have created yet another Torment Nexus. (From the popular dystopian science fiction novel 'Don't Create the Torment Nexus')

[mervynbunter]

Philip K. Dick, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (1968)

[notaplaceofhonour]

your science fiction authors were so preoccupied with whether androids dream of electric sheep that they never stopped to ask

what do electric sheep dream of?

[cosmonautroger]

Bob Pepper, Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheep, Philip K. Dick, 1971

[haveyoureadthisbook-poll]

[fishingforwords]

machines are human, too.

porter robinson, sad machine || sun yuan and peng yu, can't help myself || boston dynamics || the washington post || new york post || boston dynamics || tumblr || phillip k dick, do androids dream of electric sheep? || plainsight || wikipedia, turing test || kurt vonnegut, breakfast of champions

[idol--hands]

Data: “It feels…familiar. Like something…I might have made. In a dream.”

[mishkinis]

Do androids dream of electric sheep?

[c-vgt]

Be an Hero

C. VOGT c. 2025

oil on plywood

[filthyneverdie]

Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep (Graphic Novel)

[smbhax]

Cover illustration by Chris Moore

Info from ISFDB

[lascitasdelashoras]

Bob Pepper’s 1971 cover to 'Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep' by Philip K. Dick.