“To be born is to have a soul.”
-KD6-3.7 “Joe”
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ChatGTP has been a slightly harrowing thing in the news lately. Whether it’s the worry over the effects such a program that can generate highly sophisticated text could have over art and media and politics, or it’s drawbacks of design that can allow for the perpetuation of disinformation and discrimination, or just it’s convenience as a cheating tool in school; this latest A.I. breakthrough has come with a lot of debate and discussion over the dangers certain technologies pose. It comes on the heels of the A.I. art controversy, where artificially-generated images circulating the internet have caused a lot of dismay among working artists. Essentially it all amounts to that old until now largely theoretical fear: are we about to let technology replace us? And if technology can mimic human responses, how close is it to the human?
Clearly people have been thinking about this lately, but it’s consideration goes back through decades of science-fiction speculation, literature, and film. In 1928, German audiences were forced to confront the idea of a machine that could impersonate a human in Metropolis. In 1818, Mary Shelley entertained the notion that a created intelligence could have free will and desire the rights of humans in Frankenstein. It has always been a ponderous idea around the invention of intelligent life: does it have agency?
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Perhaps the most succinct examination of this topic, or at least the one that seems most prevalent and prominent in the science-fiction canon, is that variation posed by Philip K. Dick in his novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?; made more popular still by it’s adaptation via Hampton Fancher, David Peoples, and Ridley Scott in the film Blade Runner. It was a story that very openly reckoned with the question of the autonomy of artificial intelligence -if such a thing as A.I. advanced to a point of being virtually indistinguishable from humans, by what metric should it be disallowed rights and agency? What really is the difference between it and organic humans?
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Blade Runner is a movie directed by Ridley Scott that came out in 1982 and is set in the year 2019 -envisioned as a smoggy, ultra-capitalist dystopia where the husk of Los Angeles is one of the last bastions of civilization on a dying world. It is a world of humans and bio-engineered synthetic life-forms called replicants, identical to humans in every immediately tangible way, yet granted no rights or individual autonomy -in many cases deployed as slaves to off-world colonies. Harrison Ford stars as Rick Deckard, a specialized cop known as a Blade Runner, whose job it is to track down replicants and “retire” them, which is his motivation here when a small group of rogues arrives in L.A. seeking to overturn their systemic oppression. At the same time, Deckard liaises with and falls for Rachael (Sean Young) a replicant woman so sophisticated she believed she was a human. One by one he hunts down the fugitives as they look for their creator, and it all culminates in a thrilling showdown between Deckard and the ideologue replicant leader Roy Batty, played by Rutger Hauer, who demonstrates his resolve and a shocking human sympathy when he saves Deckard’s life. He gives a great little speech about tears in rain, lamenting the futility of his existence before dying –and leaving Deckard’s worldview in flux.
It was a stirring piece of sci-fi postulation, a resonant if flawed underclass allegory, and a movie that left a whole generation of moviegoers thinking about the implications of what being human really means. Is it inherently tangible or is more metaphysical? Is it what we’re made of or what makes us? The synthetic or the soul?
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But I’m getting ahead of myself. These complex themes in tandem with the film’s intense aesthetic style, a blend of futurism and noir that came to be known as cyberpunk, left an impression even if the movie as theatrically released was neither very profitable nor much good. It took multiple cuts released on home video over the subsequent decades for the movie to achieve cult classic status and a place among the most important entries in it’s genre -2007’s 117-minute Final Cut is generally regarded to be the optimal version. And by the 2010s it’s status as a classic of 80s cinema made it ripe for the Hollywood reboot machine. Like Tron and Ghostbusters before it, it was getting a decades-later ‘legasequel’. You can imagine the enthusiasm.
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Blade Runner 2049 released in 2017 from director Denis Villeneuve, and was to the astonishment of fans a faithful follow-up in tone, aesthetic, themes, complexity, and box office disappointment. Boldly eschewing returning characters until the last hour of a nearly three-hour sci-fi epic, it picked up thirty years after the original with a replicant Blade Runner designated KD6-3.7, played by Ryan Gosling, whose job it is to ‘retire’ older replicants not designed to the same standard of obedience and control as the newer models. K, in the process of this, unearths the remains of a dead replicant woman who had given birth, a miracle that threatens to destabilize their civilization’s entire social order. He is tasked with finding and killing the child, as further evidence mounts that it may in fact be him -something that both unnerves and affirms the dour, lonely cop silently seeking purpose and meaning in life. Eventually, this leads him and his hologram girlfriend JOI (Ana de Armas), likewise determined to move beyond the bounds of her limited existence, to Deckard in hiding; and even more ultimately to the truth that K isn’t the child, but that his actions matter nonetheless in upsetting the system and reuniting a father and daughter in safety before dying. He ensures the miracle can survive not out of any manufactured algorithm or obligation as replicant Messiah, but because he chooses to. He has the power to do the right thing even at the cost of his own life, and it comes from something he possesses that could in no way be manufactured.
It links K to Deckard, Roy Batty, even villainous replicant manufacturers Tyrell (Joe Turkel) and Wallace (Jared Leto), but is never regarded so bluntly until an early scene in 2049 where K, expressing brief hesitance at his assignment, makes a link between someone being born and having a soul -to which his immediate superior Lt. Joshi (Robin Wright) assuages him by stating he’s ‘gotten along fine without a soul’. And yet, by the end it is crystal clear that K has always had one -whatever it may be.
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The soul is a curious, rather undefinable concept, no less fascinating for how we’ve all just come to accept it in some abstract cognizance across theological or philosophical spectrums. The idea of this nebulous essence, be it of mere consciousness or some higher enlightenment within us, that makes us individuals, makes us human (and thus gives us inherent worth), is a simple, affirming, and pervasive enough idea to transcend cultures and be a central tenet to our understanding of ourselves. If not for our soul how do we reconcile what we are in relation to the world around us? It is a mark of our sentience, our intelligence; moreover it is a comfort that there is something distinct within us that is an emblem of our unique essence. To have a soul is to mean something.
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For the manipulated nature of his existence and for all of his fine-point logistical processing, this is something that K believes. There’s value in the soul and thus in lacking one, he lacks that value. But then, K’s understanding of the soul is flawed in a manner that he has seemingly never thought to interrogate. You’ll note that all of those things a soul entails that I described above, apply to him as well as any birthed person. K subscribes to a very Catholic idea of soul, in that it is a granted thing rather than something innate. In a world where not every person was “born”, this becomes the prerequisite for having a soul –just as baptism is for getting into heaven. Only there is no way he can be “baptized” -he came into this world with this disadvantage, and it cannot be corrected. In a way though, K can be excused this doctrine because it wasn’t something he learned –it in fact is what was granted to him without choice as a factor of his design. His perception then of who does and does not have a soul, and the unconscious prejudice that comes with it, comes out of the biases of a structure he has no control over.
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All of this it seems Batty was able to shake off, and perhaps his descendants of K’s time were able to as well. Realizing the system is held together by a collage of such assumptions is the first step to their revolution, their liberation –the kind of thing Joshi characterizes as “breaking the world”. It’s a notion that both Blade Runner films encourage, challenging conventional ways of thinking –what makes the human, what defines the soul. Of course the movies can do these things because our world won’t break –replicants do not exist; and the various minorities they stand in for, be they racial, religious, sexual, gender are only affirmed and made stronger by the message. Batty’s final cry proclaiming his own intrinsic value means a lot for those treated in real life as replicants are in these movies. But now we edge closer to a world where artificial intelligence in major ways is no longer the stuff of science-fiction, the movies demand to be taken literally in a new light. We look at ChatGTP and wonder, can that be understood as a conscious creature, can it have a soul?
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As we like to play God, it is easier to envision that kind of an empathy for artificial forms designed in our own image. And yet we still have a humane connection to WALL-E, to HAL from 2001: A Space Odyssey, for all of his acts of violent self-preservation -hell BECAUSE of it. I’ve been reading Lindsay Ellis’ Noumena series and one of the most fascinating themes she grapples with, especially in the second book, is the question of human rights extended toward those who are viscerally not human. There’s no anthropomorphism, no interchangeable concepts of culture or even language, but unmistakably intelligence, cognizance, and conscience -and the books explore how a believable, often divisive world would debate and discuss that philosophical conundrum.
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Looking to science-fiction that posits a soul to artificial intelligence and how human beings would consider it, reveals how it is always more about looking inward -using the apparent humanity of ‘the other’ to comment on our own. A great example of this is Star Trek, which was always at it’s best when using the circumstances of it’s world to discuss ours. A second-season episode of The Next Generation, “The Measure of a Man” openly debated the idea of an android having the rights of a human, as Commander Data’s agency is questioned by a scientist who wants to experiment on him -considering Data merely starfleet property. The principles behind this and of course Captain Picard’s adamant defence of Data formed the thematic backbone of the first season of the modern Star Trek: Picard, though the former engaged more compellingly with the ideas of Data’s humanity. And of course he spent that whole series striving towards humanity, whether in the form of artistic expression, social relationships -he even owned a cat. In that pursuit he proved he had agency, that he could distinguish morality, even that there was an individual soul within that positronic net. Star Trek emphasized Data’s value, his personhood, in his desire to be human.
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And yet, “what’s so great about being human?” asks Ada, a cloned woman who lost her android friend in Kogonada’s beautiful and meditative 2022 film After Yang -about the imprint left behind by an artificial life form. “We always assume other beings would want to be human” and we do. We have no other reference. But it brings to mind that notion that the bad things are what makes a human as much as the good. After Yang dissects this clearly as the human characters have only a limited understanding of Yang’s existential musings, and his experiences on a broader level -NOT pursued in the interest of being human but just being. He was built for a set purpose, designed as a culture aestheticized, why wouldn’t he try to challenge that? Yang’s memories provide a glimpse into these endeavours if not necessarily his personhood -are those pathways of memory that his human family witness the tethers of a soul or simply data? The bittersweet thing about that film is that Yang ultimately led a life well-lived, more than just about any of his human companions. And he left the world with a greater understanding of it. I don’t know that the same can be said for K or Batty, but they too ultimately were defined by their experiences more than their programming -their disposability.
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So is Deckard. It was one of the most brilliant choices by Villeneuve on Blade Runner 2049 to not reveal explicitly whether Deckard was a human or replicant -the great mystery that was left by and sometimes overshadowed the original film. In the end it’s not ultimately important -because human or replicant status should not make a difference. The assumption of Deckard’s humanity means that his autonomy is never questioned, his soul never questioned -even as he behaves as more automoton than man. Consider the methodical way he goes about killing his targets, the lack of sympathy or remorse. This same thing comes across in his “love” scene with Rachael, where he is harsh and forceful in a way not unlike what we see of Batty -yet without Batty’s almost Frankensteinian pathos. And it’s worth adding in the original cut of the movie, it’s all accompanied by the most mechanical efficient narration you could ever hear.
Deckard never questions that he has a soul, why would he? He is sentient, conscious, and even where he fails to exercise it, capable of independent moral growth, of evolution. And whatever you think about his origins, he is privileged by his society as a human. As a result that soul has little sway over him, he doesn’t think about it -as is true of so many of us -until he is forced to. The replicant whom he has been hunting saves his life. With minutes left to live he chooses not to let Deckard die, but instead to impart mercy and the hope that with his final breath his personhood can be recognized. Roy Batty had a soul and always knew it. A generation later, though Batty himself is forgotten, K would rechristen himself ‘Joe’ and carry on his spirit -making a critical choice as he is ready to die to save another in the hopes of making a lasting difference beyond the memory of himself. Like Batty, his life and experiences may wash away like tears in rain, but an action will be left behind with great consequences.
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What is the mark of his soul? It is this action. Sentience, awareness, the ability to learn and develop autonomously -having a soul is more than just these. Being human is more than just these. And it is certainly more than merely ‘being born’, whatever rigid definition you might apply to that concept. Though they go on very different journeys, both Deckard and Joe come to recognize the humanity in replicants -Deckard ostensibly from the outside and Joe perhaps more poignantly from within, seeing and making peace with his own intrinsic value by the end. And that understanding is signified by their making the choice to do right when they absolutely do not have to. Both men make a sacrifice to save one they would otherwise have been made to kill, and do so not for some grand or revolutionary principle, but because it is noble on an individual level. Rachael would very likely have been ‘retired’ -“it’s a shame she won’t live” Graf ominously states- if not for Deckard choosing at great personal risk to flee with her, fresh in that insinuation over the matter of his own humanness. And Ana Stelline (Carla Juri) if discovered faced a fate of death by a Blade Runner, dissection by the Wallace Corporation, or exploitative exaltation by the replicant resistance -whoever found her first. Joe gave her a fourth alternative by preserving her secret; and in saving Deckard at the cost of his own life, he both ensured their mutual safety and provided her a family for the first time. To do all this, in the knowledge of his own insignificance after so long believing himself to be what Ana is -and in the comprehension that it never mattered, he had that meaningful purpose all along; that demonstrates his soul. That is without qualifier what makes Joe as much as Deckard as much as Batty a human being.
Fundamentally, this has always been a story about human beings -what we are and where we evolve and how we impart personhood- showing us the importance of always redefining ourselves, ethically, intellectually, and in our relationship to the world. Especially as we see the progress of A.I. and major changes in the ways our society functions, it’s vital to remember we are not static creatures. It is our ability to choose to be better and act on it,even in chaotic circumstances, that affirms our humanity, reveals our soul. Blade Runner is a great movie, one made all the better by the existence of Blade Runner 2049; and Blade Runner 2049 is, full stop, the greatest ‘legasequel’ ever made. These films, unlike their protagonists, are solid in their purpose, and as this world draws in uncertain, trepidatious ways closer to that, they light the way for us to be solid in ours.
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