Alan Turing, the founder of artificial intelligence established the Turing Test to aid in differentiating between human and artificial intelligence among other things.
The test symbolizes the move to believe that positions are not permanent, while essentialist ideas of human nature are diluted. This post-modernistic thinking argues that humans develop themselves through dreams, histories, myths, stories, and memories. Langer says that postmodernism is symbolized by numerous questions as human beings attempt to understand the mystery of this world.
The breakthrough in genetic engineering and artificial intelligence makes it hard to differentiate what is imaginary from what is real among others. Films and cinematic texts give reliable resources of understanding our consciousness. Ironically, these resources give a notion of “present”, while in actual sense they establish an artificial understanding of space and time. Films impress patterns in our every day occurrences and together with statements and differences of our humanity thus shaping consciousness.
Blade Runner is one of the films that show how humanity shapes its identity and the expectations it makes based on the nature of its surrounding. The film shows a world full of corporate greed and technological growth. It portrays the city of Los Angeles as a city that cannot be inhabited.
While most of the reasonable people choose to live in the outer space, they encounter a crisis of living with genetically engineered beings referred to as “replicants”. The crisis narrows the boundary between artificial and human. The film shows the existing level of expectation and confusion in humankind by showing instances of constant happenings, disappearances, and flourishing information.
There is a division in society such that people speak different languages. Besides, harshness in the society is so great that only adults live in the society. Technology has led to the establishment of social classes where the intelligent use and discard the less intelligent at will. As the film continues, it reveals that most of the people living in Los Angeles do not enjoy their freedom as their superiors direct them on what to do.
Only those in authority like Tyrell enjoy freedom. The power-holders signify the shaping of a culture that uses and later throws away what it uses. Tyrell throws away Rachel (a replicant) after using her for a long period. The replicants’ abilities indicate the tailor-made work programs, employment arrangements, and production systems that currently exist in the modern corporations.
According to the film, disbelief is high in postmodernism in terms of distinguishing the real and imaginary. There is no clear difference between the replicants and the real people as shown by the tests conducted. Man has made most of his understandings in his own image such that it is hard to distinguish the real from the artificial and thus man is in the struggle of establishing his identity.
Blade Runner warns on the dangers of chauvinistic science that is dominating the postmodern world. The film portrays the Los Angeles of 2019 as a total ruin caused by men’s dominance. Men dominate everything.
As the film shows the development of human images and their destruction, it brings out the idea of creation and death or destruction. The film uses a dove to signify its opinion that a law, which embraces feminism, ought to rule post-apocalyptic society characterized by corporate greed in a bid to deal with male dominance in the society.