Don't Shoot the Android

I just re-read Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep by Philip K. Dick (PKD). It's a good one—and it hit me differently this time. Beyond its insights into dilemmas we may soon face with AI, it also says a lot about the plight of today’s laborers.

Rick Deckard's job is to hunt and retire (i.e. kill) androids—because he's a bounty hunter, and androids are forbidden on Earth. Occasionally, a few make their way back from off-world colonies and hide out, pretending to be human, so they have to be exterminated.

Over time, the androids become nearly indistinguishable from humans, and that starts to mess with Deckard. He begins to feel guilty about killing them. He develops too much empathy.

Yet he still feels pressure to do his job—and he still needs the money. So he's torn. At one point, he decides he's done with it:

"This is my end," he said to himself. "As a bounty hunter. After the Batys [an android husband and wife], there won't be any more. Not after this, tonight."

Sadly, in the end, he resigns himself to his morally questionable work, following the advice of Mercer, a religious icon who appears to him in visions. Mercer explains:

"You will be required to do wrong no matter where you go. It is the basic condition of life, to be required to violate your own identity. At some time, every creature which lives must do so. It is the ultimate shadow, the defeat of creation; this is the curse at work, the curse that feeds on all life. Everywhere in the universe."

The same rationalization returns at the end of the novel as Deckard reflects on his new conviction (resignation?) to his wife:

"Do you think I did wrong?" he asked. "What I did today?"
"No."
"Mercer said it was wrong but I should do it anyhow. Really weird. Sometimes it's better to do something wrong than right."
"It's the curse on us," Iran said. "That Mercer talks about."

These passages haunt me. I'm terrified that anyone could ever conclude that they’re true.

I'll admit, I often feel exactly like Deckard. I have a mortgage and other expenses that never go away. The job market isn't always great. So when my boss demands unquestioning obedience or threatens termination, I feel trapped.

But does that make Mercer right? Are we doomed to do what we hate, what we feel is wrong? Is that the consequence of living in society—the curse that feeds on all life?

I hope with every part of me that it’s not.

When otherwise good people decide they must violate their conscience at work because “that’s the way the sausage gets made,” society begins to slide. We make a mess of things.

Sure, sometimes we have to suck it up and do things we don’t enjoy. That’s fine when the tasks are benign. But when they violate our values and carry real consequences, we have to stand up and say no.

Most things programmers are required to do never rise to the level of evil involved in terminating sentient life forms, but we are still forced to act against our convictions every day. So much of what we do is contrary to what we would choose for ourselves. We are forced to:

• work in distracting open offices, when working at home is more productive.

• complete single-day tasks when we would rather tackle month-long projects and determine the tasks ourselves.

• agree to unrealistic deadlines.

• forgo important planning, research, and prototyping.

• optimize our work to pointless, counterproductive metrics.

• persist in unfruitful circumstances (with people or projects with which we are a poor fit).

• use wasteful and bureaucratic tooling and processes.

• ask permission to install important software on work laptops.

• use specific operating systems instead of the systems we are most comfortable with.

The list could go on forever. Some may disagree that these examples constitute moral dilemmas, but the slope is slippery, and when every request goes unquestioned, we end up as wage slaves—without identity, without careers to shape or be proud of. We share Deckard’s fate:

“...everything about me had become unnatural; I’ve become an unnatural self.”

“Yes, he thought, that’s what it is: I’ve been defeated in some obscure way.”

“I’m a scourge, like famine or plague. Where I go the ancient curse follows. As Mercer said, I am required to do wrong. Everything I’ve done has been wrong from the start.”

Do I refuse to do all the things I listed above? No. I pick my battles to avoid getting fired. Sadly, I agree to way more than I should. We all do. As a result, we have given up a lot of territory. But, we need to find ways to start taking it back.

One thing is certain: to avoid the fate of PKD’s anti-hero, amidst the pressures designed to force compliance, we have to draw lines we won’t cross. If we don’t, we’ll lose ourselves. As hard as it is to stand up against compulsion, the alternative is far worse.

We can do it... right? We have to.

And more to the point: if an android isn’t hurting anyone, can’t we just let them be? Do we really gotta shoot 'em?