1 THE PARANOIA AND THE TECHNOLOGICAL TRANSFORMATIONS - AN ANALYSIS OF THE NOVEL DO ANDROIDS DREAM OF ELECTRIC SHEEP? BY PHILIP K. DICK Arthur SUCIU arthur.suciu@usm.ro Faculty of Letters and Communication Sciences “Ștefan cel Mare” University, Suceava Abstract: In this article, we have analyzed Philip K. Dick's perspective on the artificial intelligence, as presented in the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? Unlike today's AI researchers, whose efforts are focused on finding a solution to the creation of the general artificial intelligence, Dick draws attention to the ontological, identity, and affective issues involved in the relationship between the humans and the artificial intelligence. The American novelist also raises issues related to the relationship of the political power with the artificial intelligence, as the latter seeks autonomy from the humans. Keywords: artificial intelligence, affective flattening, science fiction novel, androids, enclaved distancing “The electric things have their lives, too. Paltry as those lives are.” (Philip K. Dick) “The heart has its reasons which reason knows nothing of.” (Blaise Pascal) In Philip K. Dick's novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? the relationship between the humans and the artificial intelligence is put too loosely in the terms of today's scientists. The theoretical and technological issues themselves, such as those of the general artificial intelligence and the use of abduction 1 , are not raised, especially since, in the 1960s, when 1 The abduction is a type of reasoning that starts from a hypothesis and uses “shortcuts” in an attempt to reach valid conclusions. The abductive reasoning, which would be involved in the project of creating artificial general intelligence, was theorized by the logician Ch. S. Pierce. See Erik J. Larson, The Myth of Artificial Intelligence. Why Computers Can't Think The Way We Do, Polirom Publishing House, Iași, 2022.