In Philip K. Dick’s novel, “Do Andriods Dream of Electric Sheep” (the book on which the film “Blade Runner” was based), technology has advanced to the point that humans can build very realistic-looking (and acting) synthetic animals and androids.  Some of the androids escape and walk among the human population undetected, which is against the law.  The main character, Rick Deckard, is a bounty hunter who is charged with hunting down rogue androids and, um, “retiring” them.

In the novel, the latest and greatest androids are practically indistinguishable from humans in any way.  No white-blooded Data-skin R2-D2 droids here, Deckard is a one-man death panel and has to ensure they are NOT humans before he can, gulp, “retire” them.  Which leads the book to explores the issue: What does it mean to be human?  It drills to the very core of human thoughts, emotions, religion and morality.

Unlike humans, the androids possess no empathic sense.  They have no emotions at all, and some are not even aware they’re NOT human.  This makes for some interesting reading, which is probably one reason why Philip K. Dick’s writings were the basis of Blade Runner, Total Recall, Minority Report, Paycheck and many other films.  He’s got the steak and the sizzle.

So how do you tell if someone has no empathy?  You have them watch something like this and you watch them very carefully for empathetic reactions:

If they didn’t start crying, they’re most likely a robot.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cZtU676jA_k

In Philip K. Dick’s short story “The Minority Report” (and the subsequent film of the same name), futuristic pre-cogs — humans with the ability to see future events — were used to predict violent behaviors so police could stop them before they happened.

A shooting on August 4th at a Pittsburgh, PA fitness center killed three people and injured ten.  Another chilling aspect of the story, however, is the Internet presence that the suspected shooter, George Sodini, left behind.

It is not far-fetched to think that a search program could be written to detect keywords and possibly flag such posts, creating a very real pre-crime tool.  Go to Twitter and type in suicide and see what you get. The results can be quite surprising.

George Sodini’s Chilling Blog Foretold Health Club Shootings.