How Blade Runner 2049 prepares us to welcome robots for real

Science fiction can be a tool for exploring the social and ethical implications of technologies being developed now

The idea of dangerous, inhumane artificial intelligence taking over the world is familiar to many of us, thanks to cautionary tales such as the Matrix and Terminator franchises.

But what about the more sympathetic portrayals of robots? The benevolence of Arnold Schwarzenegger’s Terminator character in the later movies of the franchise may have been the exception in older portrayals of AI, but human-like machines are often represented more positively in contemporary films. Think of Ex Machina, Chappie or A.I. Artificial Intelligence.

This shift is very likely representative of a wider shift in how