The Question of Life - Blade Runner

This past weekend I watched, for the first time, the movie Blade Runner (1982). The film is set in a dystopian future Los Angeles of 2019, in which synthetic humans known as replicants are bio-engineered by the powerful Tyrell Corporation to work on space colonies. Why I never watched this movie sooner, I can't say. But, given today's advancement in AI, especially its being commercially available to almost anyone with a cell phone or computer, I found the movie to be “disturbing.”

Personally, I love technology, especially computers. I've tried to stay up to date with computing advances since at least the 1980s (yes, I'm that old). I tinker with programming, web design, virtual machines, etc. 

Why did I find this movie “disturbing”? Mainly because of the underlying philosophical question: What is life? As a person with degrees in philosophy and theology, I found the premise insightful because the AI replicants are created in the image of adult humans, yet they are not given memories and have a lifespan of only 4 years. A question in the movie is if they know they aren't human. They are aware of their lifespan, but supposedly, they don't have emotions.

I won't give away the movie, as I encourage you to watch it. But I do want to briefly reflect on the theme of what life is. What makes a human different from other forms of life? Do we afford plants and other animals the same rights as we do for humans? Of course not. But why not? Since a replicant looks and acts as an adult human, although a machine, do they get rights?

In the movie, one of the replicants states, “I can think, therefore I am.” This is a direct reference to the French philosopher René Descartes (1596-1650), who used that exact statement to justify human existence. He felt that since we as humans can think, we therefore exist. In this situation, exist means to think or contemplate our existence—past, present, and future. In opposition, other animals are not self-aware, nor can they think. But the replicants were able to think. The difference being that they didn't have a past before adulthood (although none of us can recall a past before our existence either).

From a spiritual perspective, especially a Christian one, the belief is that we are created in the image of God, our maker. That makes us unique from the other living things. Yet, the replicants were made in the image of their creator, too.

I haven't yet fleshed out all the intricacies of this topic just yet, as I haven't had time for a deep reflection on this topic. What are your thoughts on this, especially as it relates to the rise of AI?