"The Android and the Human" is a speech given by science-fiction author Philip K. Dick at the

Vancouver Science Fiction Convention VCON is a fan run fantasy, gaming, and science fiction convention held annually in the metro Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada. It has been hosted by the West Coast Science Fiction Association (WCSFA) since 1993, and by the Western Canadi ...

, taking place at the

University of British Columbia The University of British Columbia (UBC) is a Public university, public research university with campuses near University of British Columbia Vancouver, Vancouver and University of British Columbia Okanagan, Kelowna, in British Columbia, Canada ...

in December 1972. It was subsequently published in the fanzine SF Commentary, issue 31. In it the author examines the psychology of humanity as seen through the lens of technology, and vice versa. Dick compares the way that modern technology is animated by mechanism or computation with the way that, according to sociology, primitive man imagines reality itself to be "alive": Rocks, clouds, and the rest of his environment seeming full of hidden motivation, often replete with malice or benevolence. As man advances, intellectually, he comes to the point where he questions that magical world of superstition, coming to only see life where it actually is, scientifically. In fact he can become solipsist about whether there is any life outside of his own thoughts: ''

Cogito, ergo sum The Latin , usually translated into English as "I think, therefore I am", is the "first principle" of René Descartes's philosophy. He originally published it in French language, French as , in his 1637 ''Discourse on the Method'', so as to re ...

''. But with modern automation, people can be drawn back into the intellectually primitive world of

animism Animism (from meaning 'breath, spirit, life') is the belief that objects, places, and creatures all possess a distinct spiritual essence. Animism perceives all things—animals, plants, rocks, rivers, weather systems, human handiwork, and in ...

, where life appears to be in places sound reason says it is not. This was apparent even in 1972, years before Alexa or

Siri Siri ( , backronym: Speech Interpretation and Recognition Interface) is a digital assistant purchased, developed, and popularized by Apple Inc., which is included in the iOS, iPadOS, watchOS, macOS, Apple TV, audioOS, and visionOS operating sys ...

. What's more, that technological illusion of life is being created by human beings, who therefore project their own biases and views onto it, so that this impression of animism is a mirror held up to humanity itself: Dick analogizes this to androids, describing such a device as "a thing somehow generated to deceive us in a cruel way, to cause us to think it to be one of ourselves". In fact, Dick even claims that a person who lacks the ethics, empathy, and sincerity that are seen as defining humanity can be considered an android: "a metaphor for people who are physiologically human but psychologically behaving in a non-human way."PHILIP K. DICK ON SEX BETWEEN HUMANS AND ANDROIDS
/ref> Among the androids of modern society, Dick addresses the unethical behavior of the

police state A police state describes a state whose government institutions exercise an extreme level of control over civil society and liberties. There is typically little or no distinction between the law and the exercise of political power by the exec ...

, giving examples of what would someday be called the surveillance society. One such being the way checkpoints justified to prevent mass shootings in libraries had almost immediately come to be used as a means of generating false probable cause to search people for drugs. Contrasted with this is the hope that Philip holds for the youth who are used to the police state, and yet resisting it via

civil disobedience Civil disobedience is the active and professed refusal of a citizenship, citizen to obey certain laws, demands, orders, or commands of a government (or any other authority). By some definitions, civil disobedience has to be nonviolent to be cal ...

References

Speeches by Philip K. Dick 1972 speeches {{technology-stub