Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?

He thought, too, about his need for a real animal; within him an actual hatred once more manifested itself toward his electric sheep, which he had to tend, had to care about, as if it lived. The tyranny of an object, he thought. It doesn’t know I exist. Like the androids, it had no ability to appreciate the existence of another. He had never thought of this before, the similarity between an electric animal and an andy. The electric animal, he pondered, could be considered a subform of the other, a kind of vastly inferior robot. Or, conversely, the android could be regarded as a highly developed, evolved version of the ersatz animal. Both viewpoints repelled him.

“Don’t the androids keep you company? I heard a commercial on — “ Seating himself he ate, and presently she too picked up the glass of wine; she sipped expressionlessly. “I understood that the androids helped.”

“The androids,” she said, “are lonely, too.”