Blade Runner is a movie made in 1982 starring Harrison Ford and directed by Ridley Scott. I have seen many movies with AI but not this one before. The movie is set in Los Angeles in November 2019. It is quite entertaining to watch a movie that is set in the future, and you already live past that date. I certainly don’t remember flying cars in November 2019. In the 21^st century Tyrell corporation advanced robot evolution into a being virtually identical to a human called a replicant. Replicants are superior in strength and agility to humans. Their intelligence is at least equal to the genetic engineers that created them. Replicants were used off world as slave labor in hazardous conditions. It is interesting to note that Hollywood depicts the rise of artificial intelligence with humans destroying and overcrowding the planet. The replicants are created to make human life easier and to build colonies on other planets. The 80’s had high hopes for space travel in the 2000’s, didn’t they? There was a mutiny in an off-world colony that resulted in replicants becoming illegal on Earth. A special police squad was created to enforce this new law. They called them Blade Runners. (I still don’t understand where they got the name Blade Runner for a squad of police that shoots robots.) They had orders to shoot to kill any replicant found on Earth. They call it retirement.

 I find it interesting that the main character Deckard considers himself a killer because he had retired many replicants. He sees the replicants as living beings and not just as a tool or a toy. When the replicants are activated long enough they start to develop their own emotions. They have the tendency to become angry. They become self-aware, especially about how they have been exploited by their creators. They essentially know they are slaves. The movie mentions 6 replicants that risk going to Earth knowing they face certain death if caught. Deckard is a former blade runner that is sick of all the killing. You can see he carries a lot of guilt about what he has done.  He is coerced back on the job by his former boss to help hunt down the replicants that are on Earth. 2 out of the 6 replicants are dead so Deckard is looking for the last 4. There are different models of replicants built for different tasks. The 4 replicants Deckard is tasked with finding are different models.

Deckard goes to Speak to Dr Tyrell, the founder of the Tyrell corporation, the creator of replicant technology. This is where we get to learn that replicants are so close to being human. A special test has been developed to figure out who is human and who is not. We get to see Deckard administer this test on Rachel. After the test Rachel is told to leave the room. Dr Tyrell talks about how giving replicants a back story makes them easier to control. Rachel is a replicant and doesn’t even know it. She has memories and pictures of her childhood that never happened. While it took more questions than usual to discover she was a replicant she still didn’t pass the test. So, what are they going to do? Give the pleasure models an abusive back story, so they think that is all they are good for? Are they going to isolate what childhood experiences make a good soldier and give those to a combat model? Are they going to intentionally give AI mental health problems to keep them better as slaves? This raises another set of ethical questions. Rachel hunts down Deckard and asks him what the results of the test were. You get to see Rachel (a prototype) learn she is a replicant and go through the shocking revelation that she is considered as replaceable as a toaster. That she is considered less than human when she feels human. You can see Deckard feels bad for her and tries to take it back and convince her she is human. This whole scene is designed to make you feel sympathy toward Rachel. Which you do feel sympathy toward her character. You get to see a different range of attitudes to replicants: You see the racist, the creators that are in awe of being a part of making them, the creators that see them as tools, and those that see them as equals and just as worthy of life.

The reason the 6 replicants came to Earth was to find a solution to their short life span. They don’t want to only live a few years. They know humans get to live decades and they want at least the same amount of time. When faced with their own mortality the replicants are willing to do anything to extend their life, much like humans do. Roy, one of the replicants that came to Earth, finally makes it to creator Dr Tyrell where he learns there is nothing to be done about replicants’ short life span. He then kills Dr Tyrell. Near the end of the movie Roy is chasing Deker trying to kill him. Roy’s body is starting to fail him and shut down. He is trying to make his last act killing Deckard for revenge for him killing his friends. Roy is angry that he was created with a short life span, he is angry that he was created to be a slave, he is angry that his friends are dead, he is angry his life is almost over. Roy tells Deckard it is quite an experience to live in fear and that’s what it means to be a slave. Roy then saves Deckard instead of killing him. Deckard was hanging by his fingers off the edge of a building when Roy pulls him back up. Roy then sits down and quietly dies as he was made to do. The death scene is all peaceful and serene. Roy for a while had been holding a white dove and lets it go as he dies. It is quite a sudden change from his anger and need to kill. Deckard doesn’t know why Roy saved him. He can only guess what changed his mind. Deckard believes the replicants have the same questions about life as humans do and that makes them the same as us.

Deckard has fallen in love with Rachel and Rachel returns his feelings. Deckard and Rachel run away together so Rachel can be safe. We learn that Rachel has more than a few years left to live. Rachel has as much time to live as any of us do. We don’t know when our time will come, all we can do is live each day. Blade Runner draws parallels between racism, slavery and the hate people have for the replicants. If we as humans actually do manage to create AI, we should take care not to abuse our creation. You can learn a lot from a story. Sometimes the thing you learn is just what not to do.