DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP?

By Philip K. Dick

Have you ever wondered what's the meaning of being self-concious? In fact, this topic is even more tricky than it seems.

Philip K. Dick proposes us to consider if a machine can be self-concious  and the meaning of the term. Are emotions what really makes us intelligent beings?.

 Rick Deckard, the main character of the novel, works for the police as a bounty-hunter. His duty consists of "retiring" renegade "andys". An "andy" was the name given to intelligent robots that have escaped. And Deckard's job is to capture them.

But  things get more complicated when he takes up a new and more challenging mission.  He is assigned the task of indentificate and "retire" some Nexus-6 robots that have escaped from Mars. 

However, the task will reveal to be more difficult than it appeared to be. The fisrst part is to get used to the usage of a machine wich performs a test that should help him to determine whethter he is dealing with a robot or with a human.

The machine measures the emotional reaction to several situtations. The test relies on the assumption that robots will never be as emotional as humans, no matter how intelligent are they. The test  takes for granted that if the responses are emotional enough the subject is a human. On the contrary, if the subject is not emotional enough, the subject is a robot a should be "retired".

The  book, considered as a masterpiece of the Science-Fiction, inspired the film "Blade Runner".