Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep - Dick

 

In 1968 Philip K. Dick posed the question, do androids dream of electric sheep?  It's been 50 years since he penned his apocalyptic vision of the future and now here in 2019 that question can still not be answered.  World War Terminus has not occurred. We have not yet begun to colonize Mars. Animals are still ubiquitous. And we are still no closer to understanding human empathy. Perhaps most important, the Turing test that Ray Kurzweil believes will fall by 2029 looms but a decade away. Despite the many advances in artificial intelligence the closest we are to a Rachael or a Pris is called Alexa. Luba Luft, however, arguably has taken the form of a holographic and synthetic  phenomenon known as Hatsune Miku who can, as with Alexa, claim a world wide following.

Although it was written so long ago, with the Intel 4-bit 4004 CPU still a gleam in it's daddy's eye (Intel started in 1968) the prescience of Dick cannot be understated. Also,we still don't know if Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford in the 1982 block buster Blade Runner and again in Blade Runner 2049 for those relying on the movies) is live or Memorex.

The questions, however, of connection, of consciousness, of soul, and what it means to be human (or animal) are still timeless.  Dick poses to us a test, or andies (androids), in the book.  The test is called the Voight-Kampf.  It is used to determine if the subject shows human empathy, the suggested only discriminator between real and artificial life forms.  This, just before the bounty hunter can legally kill (retire) there target, and earn the $1,000 bounty.  It's not clear to me if the $1,000 bounty was in the original.  Either way that's about $7,200 in today's dollars or about 1.36 Bitcoin.  On that day, when Deckard retired 6 of the Nexus-6 androids, he would have earned just over $43,000 in today's dollars.  Not bad for a days work on a rampant killing spree.  Apparently he would still have to make payments on the Nubian goat he purchased for the next 60 months.  Live goats cost about as much as an Audi Q5 in post-apocalyptic San Francisco in 1968.

But there is so much more in the scant 220 pages.  Dick trifles with religion, inventing one for the masses.  It's call Mercer and through a electronic box humans can connect with both the collective of followers and the originator, to boost their feelings hope.  Jay Sheddy on Facebook anyone?  For me, however, despite the multiple interpretations of his writing, the fan fiction, the movies, the comic books, and the sequels, in the end it all comes back to the original question.  Certainly if androids own pets, care for them, feed them, bath them, sleep with them, talk to them, play with them, take them to the doctor when they are sick, and love them, those actions dive deeper into the heart of the question then the answer everyone has been waiting for. 

Unfortunately the answer to this question in 2019 is still no.  Despite the fact that it is now possible for technology to automate and knock off just about every one of those caring actions, even programming Alexa to do most of the work, Alexa will still not dream...and Rutger Hauer will also not shed a tear...again for you movie buffs.  5 Stars.  Easy read, highly entertaining, deep  philosophical work in cybernetics as they called it back in the 60's.