"The main difference between what Ridley views this all in terms of and what I view it all in terms of is as follows. To me, the replicants (or androids, if you will) are deplorable because [inaudible] they are cold, they are selfish, they are heartless, they are completely self-centered, they have no empathy, they don't care about what happens to other creatures, and to me this is essentially a less-than-human entity for that reason. Now, Ridley said that he regarded them as supermen who couldn't fly. He said they are smarter than humans, they are stronger than humans, and they have faster reflexes than humans. Well, then I said 'well, gee Ridley, I mean, holy smokes, uh, golly,' and that was about all I could think of to say, you know. That's rather a great divergence, you see: we've gone from somebody who is a simulation of the authentic human to somebody who is literally superior to the authentic human. So we've now flipped all the cards on the table, you see, when we do that: in other words, all the cards that were up are now down and all the ones that were down are now up. And I was at a loss at that point, you know, to respond, I mean. I said, 'okay, now the theme of the book is that Rick Deckard is dehumanized in his job of tracking down the replicants and killing them, that in other words he winds up essentially like they are.' And Ridley said that he regarded that as an intellectual idea and he was not interested in making an esoteric film."

-- Philip K. Dick, interview with Paul M. Sammon (https://invidious.snopyta.org/watch?v=3d7XMnmPgUk starting at 19:10)