Bladerunner

In 1982, when Bladerunner was released, 2019 could only have been a blink of an eye in people’s thoughts. Even the year 2001, the year in which the movie 2001: A Space Odessey (1968) takes place, must have seemed far off. Of course, the actual year was not so futuristic as to have a computer take over a space station; controversy over AI eclipsing the grasp of human control would not hit the societal mainstream for twenty years.  So, Ridley Scott can hardly be blamed for positing flying cars, and, even more astonishing, imposing the notion of a replicant, a being of genetic biomechanics that fuses computer and human characteristics, on 2019. Even acknowledging the tremendous impacts on society of inventions since the dawn of the twentieth century, the pace of technological change is slower than we imagine. In 2019, on the cusp of a global pandemic, flying (and self-driving) cars were just in the prototype/testing phase, and AI existed rudimentarily, and certainly not corporeally in human form. Scott missed the mark, probably by decades, though he got the trajectory right. Indeed, the film’s central issue—that of the threat of run-away, or “rebellious,” AI to humans—was reflected in the press especially during the first half of 2023. I contend, however, that the philosophical merit of the film lies not in political theory, but, rather, in what it means to be human. The nature of human understanding, self-awareness, an ethical sense, and matters of theological reflection are all brought to the forefront in the question of whether the replicants can and should be taken as human beings. In other words, it is the fusion of AI, or computers more generally, and biology that lies at the core of the film.

In the film, Deckard is hired to kill replicants who have rebelled by traveling to Earth. His character arc can be grasped in terms of a gradual recognition that they essentially human, or at least enough like us that they can and should be regarded as subjects rather than objects. The film furnishes us with several criteria in which the replicants can be counted as human.

Self-awareness is the foremost criterion: taking oneself to be an entity that has subjectivity. At one point in the film, Pris, a female replicant, says, “I think, therefore I am.” Cogito ergo sum. The screenwriter doubtlessly had Descartes in mind. I am aware that I am thinking, therefore I exist. Even if an evil deceiver has us believing incorrectly that the world of appearances exists, we know that our thinking does not depend on any external world. In the film, the replicants can indeed think; they have been programmed to do so by Tyrell, who is a genius. In fact, the leader of the rebel replicants on Earth, Batty, refers to Tyrell as the replicant’s creator (god) even though it could be argued that the genetic bioengineers who grow the biological organs of the replicants also warrant such divine status. In actuality, there is nothing divine about programming AI or growing biological organs presumably out of stem-cells. It is not as if Tyrell and his engineers create everything, whether ex nihilo or not (one of the Creation accounts in Genesis is not ex nihilo). In other words, the give rise to existence itself is qualitatively different than creating something in particular in the realm of already-existence.

So the replicants have the human attribute of being self-conscious of themselves as entities that can think. This is not to say that they are minds in vats filled with chemicals. Pris insists that she is also physical, by which she means biological or corporeal in nature. She has a body; a replicant has biomass and even human genes. One of the biometric engineers tells a replicant, “You have my genes in you.” Can we say then that Descartes’ mind/body duality pertains to replicants? The replicant’s mind is programmed whereas the bodies are grown organically. The film does not provide us with a definite account of how the replicant brain is “hard-wired”—whether it is a computer physically emmeshed in a biological body or that computer code has somehow been written into the organic neuro-networks. The latter alternative lies beyond our comprehension, at least as of 2023. Indeed, it may even seem paradoxical. In a Gospel narrative, the risen Jesus walks through a door yet he is hungry and eats a fish. It is clear that his corporeal body has been transformed yet is still corporeal. In Pris insisting to the bioengineer who grows eyes using his own genes for replicants that she is physical rather than merely a thinking thing, the implication is that the replicants are entirely biological (i.e., every organ is organic rather than machine). Yet in her death throws after being shot (not tased!), Pris’s body shakes violently as if it were being electrocuted. The implication here is that her brain was hit and is electronic circuits rather than made of flesh. If so, it is remarkable, again from the standpoint of the actual world in 2023, that a hard-wire computer can have self-awareness, and thus be taken as a subject (i.e., having subjectivity).

Furthermore, the replicants have emotions, which are in the subjectivity; that is, the replicants know that they themselves feel. The replicants, especially Batty being of the sixth generation, are intelligent. So too is Tyrell, who had programmed Batty; both are superb at the game of chess. The replicants know that they (i.e., their respective subjectivities) will one day come to an end. In being mortal, they are like us. Similarly, they fear death. Two replicants, one of whom is Batty, make it clear that they fear dying. Batty even tells Deckard, the bladerunner, that it is precisely that fear that makes someone a slave—a slave to one’s fear. So it is clear that AI extends in the story-world of the film beyond intelligence to include emotions. Additionally, Batty clearly mourns Pris, and even exacts vengeance on Deckard for having killed Pris and another replicant in Batty’s rebel group.

Even more astonishingly, the AI manifesting in Batty includes a moral sense. When Tyrell tells Batty, “You’re the prodigal son,” Batty retorts, “I’ve done questionable things.” Ironically, it is the human Tyrell who seems to be missing the moral sense, for he replies, “Also extraordinary things!” It is indeed extraordinary that a replicant would then bring in theology in saying quite sadly, “Nothing that the god of biomechanics would let you into heaven for.” Batty even conceptualizes heaven. At one point while fighting Deckard, Batty says, “Go to hell; go to heaven.” Batty’s sarcastic quip, “Aren’t you the good man” to Deckard for not fighting fair, can be assumed to have theological and not merely moral overtones. Batty even calls him a bastard spirit. Finally, clearly aware that he is soon going to die, Batty saves Deckard rather than kills him. Kindness to one’s enemy has explicit religious overtones in Christianity even if most Christians prefer to focus instead on a metaphysical belief-claim that is only indirectly linked to helping one’s enemies. Indeed, the history of Christianity presents examples of Christians having “true belief” yet belying the claim by persecuting rather than helping people they didn’t like. Here in Bladerunner, it is a replicant that ironically provides us with an illustrative example of Christian charity. Deckard can only look up perplexed at Batty’s change of heart. When Batty dies, he releases a white dove, which flies away, evocative perhaps of Batty’s soul leaving his body. At the very least, Batty has in his mind the idea of God. In his proof that God exists, Descartes posits that existence because the idea, itself having full perfection, could not come from a being of less perfection. So God must exist for there to be the idea of God in a human mind. Yet a finite mind can also have the idea of infinity without there even needing to be infinity.

At the very least, it is clear that Batty thinks a lot about morality and even religion. In contrast, Deckard does not. Even though Batty has done “questionable things,” it is telling that he is quite aware of this. Historically, Shaftsbury, Hutcheson, Hume, and Adam Smith all posited a moral sentiment in human nature; we are fundamentally sociable creatures who gain pleasure from shared experience that “fellow feeling,” or sympathy, and imagination can provide. When Batty saves Deckard from falling, the two share an intimate moment emotionally as Batty shares the marvels of what he has seen.  He is saying, in effect, that he had not been merely an instrument, or object, that humans sent out to protect the colonies in space; rather, his existence has chiefly been that of a subjectivity, and is thus worthy of being taken as an end in itself, rather than merely as a means to a human’s plans. Kant’s ethical claim that beings partaking in rational nature—being able to use reasoning—should be valued in themselves is taken up and embraced implicitly by the most advanced replicant. As he was being used as an instrument—an object—to protect the intergalactic colonies, Batty was marveling at the sights. He was not merely a machine. Perhaps by observing the humanity of the dying replicant, Deckard then comes to the realization that he loves Rachael, one of the female replicants, and that she can love and trust him. The two recognize each other as subjects—each as having a subjectivity rather than being taken as an object.

In short, the film essentially asks what it means to be human. Self-awareness, reasoning, emotions, a moral sense, and even contemplation of ideas transcending the limits of human conception and perception are qualities that pertain to at least the most advanced generation of replicants. It is ironic that it is a replicant, Batty, who brings up and critiques Deckard from moral and religious standpoints. Clearly, a replicant’s understanding goes beyond the machine-type of “manipulation of symbols according to rules.” Moreover, the cognition and understanding mesh with emotions and self-awareness, as well as the awareness of other subjects. Indeed, the aforementioned qualities of the replicants are sufficient to support the claim that they can love and be loved in return—the Bohemian ideal expressed in Moulin Rouge. 

In Bladerunner, both Deckard and Batty come around to being more human, and thus more humane. Both can be taken as subjects rather than objects; both have subjectivities. Perhaps it can even be said that Deckard’s humanity depends on that of the replicants, or at least to the recognition that they are sufficiently human to be taken as such rather than as walking computers. Certainly, it is the humaneness of Batty that Deckard literally comes to depend on to live another day. It certainly would not make sense to say that Deckard owes anything to the replicant were it merely a machine that manipulates symbols according to rules even assuming the existence of machine learning. Yet that Batty has a subjectivity and thus experience that goes beyond his essence—an existentialist assumption—means that Deckard can feel that he owes Batty a debt of gratitude. Certainly Deckard feels an ethical obligation toward Rachael because she not only loves him, but trusts him as well. She is thus capable of being hurt emotionally, should he betray her by reverting back to viewing the replicants as objects. Finally we have in Bladerunner what it means to be human, ironically in its fullest sense.