BPO2: What Makes Us Human?
Human Nature or A Machine’s Facadé Cyberpunk in literature and film are more than just films that predict future innovations in technology but rather explores the deleterious characteristics of technological dependencies while highlighting what it means to be human. Prevalent themes in—Blade Runner (1982) and Neuromancer (1984)—do this in very similar ways. In Ridley Scott’s Blade Runner, he presents many concepts that showcase bioengineering at its peak with replicants almost if not exactly human. These replicants then go to challenge conventional ideas of what human identity is and one’s moral compass. Main protagonist Deckard interacts with Rachael and Roy who are both learning seemingly easy human traits such as emotion and memory, yet these traits are not inherently human—they are learned, simulated, or implanted. Through these interactions, the film asks viewers to reconsider the boundaries of personhood: what makes someone truly human, and who gets to decide? In a similar nature, William Gibson’s Neuromancer follows the advancements of Artificial Intelligence in cyberspace. Wintermute and Neuromancer function fully on intelligence, comprehensive, and emotional competence as seen through their interactions with Case. We see Case navigating these interactions, often unable to distinguish between genuine consciousness and sophisticated simulation, which forces both him and the reader to question the nature of sentience and agency. These overlapping concepts in cyberpunk literature examine how certain texts evaluate the challenge between deciphering between the human and the machine
Shared Themes: Consciousness, Memory, and Embodiment When evaluating the shared themes between the two pieces of literature, its important to understand how they both attack the concept of the mind and body and its relation to how that shapes the human psyche and identity. In Blade Runner, the foundation of these replicants were based on lived or simulated experiences and implanted in their very self. In a similar fashion, Neuromancer, consciousness is inseparable from the body that produces it, as Case’s inability to fully experience Molly’s perspective demonstrates. Together, these works highlight a foundational cyberpunk concern: technological advancements—whether AI, biotech, or cyberspace—can replicate human capacities but also expose the fragility of human experience. With this discussion, the audience is forced to confront their own ethical realization on if AI can become indistinguishable from a human, then do we treat them with the same regard and sympathy as a human would? Gibson and Scott would both suggest yes or consider a reality where their ethics should be challenged. As Braidotti (2013) argues in her work on posthumanism, understanding subjectivity as relational and embodied allows for a more nuanced ethical framework, one that cyberpunk dramatizes through the tension between human and machine.
Why Examining Both Matters Looking at Blade Runner and Neuromancer together reinforces the idea that cyberpunk is deeply concerned with blurred boundaries. Both works explore: • Human versus machine: What traits define humanity when machines can simulate intelligence and emotion? • Mind versus body: Consciousness in cyberspace or in a replicant’s brain cannot be divorced from embodied experience. • Ethics and recognition: Society often fails to recognize the rights or agency of entities that challenge normative definitions of human. Together, these works remind us that technology amplifies questions of identity, ethics, and social recognition, and that cyberpunk’s dystopian settings often serve as ethical laboratories for these explorations. Conclusion Blade Runner and Neuromancer both highlight and dramatize the tension between technological innovation and human identity. By examining the replicants of Blade Runner and the AI discussed in Neuromance side by side, we see that cyberpunk is less about predicting future with flying cars and more about exploring how technological advancement reshapes moral, social, and existential boundaries. Both of these works push the audience to reconsider the foundations of human nature, embodiment, and consciousness in an increasingly technological world.
References
Braidotti, R. (2013). The posthuman. Polity Press.
Gibson, W. (1984). Neuromancer. Ace Books.
Scott, R. (Director). (1982). Blade Runner [Film]. Warner Bros.