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When it was released in 1982, Blade Runner painted a picture of a dystopian near-future in which humans lived alongside machines. These Replicants, created by the fictional Tyrell Corporation, were more human than human.

Now, with the release of Blade Runner 2049, we’re only two years away from the year when the first film is set. Even Nasa described the original film as realistic, but just how far is our technology from being able to create a Replicant?


The most realistic-looking robots can certainly fool you into thinking they are human, upon first glance. Underneath the human-like exterior, there’s just a mess of electronics, but developments in bioengineering are bringing us closer to being able to create a synthetic human.

Head transplants

Earlier this year, an Italian scientist made headlines because of his involvement in a shocking new study. He and a team of Chinese researchers claimed to have successfully transplanted the head of a rat onto another rat’s body.

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The paper was praised as being a step towards human head transplant surgery. But neuroscientists are wary of these claims. Sergio Canavero, the surgeon behind the paper, has been dubbed Dr. Frankenstein after claiming he will be able to complete a human head transplant by the end of this year. However, no surgeon I spoke to agreed this would be possible.

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“The concern many of us in the field have about this sort of work is that those involved appear to be charging ahead without a viable, demonstrated solution for the significant and unresolved technical challenges,” says Dr. Wael Asaad, assistant professor of neurosurgery at Brown Alpert Medical School. “And without sufficient attention to the ethical and social factors.”

Brain transplants, which Canavero is also claiming to pursure, are just as tricky. “The problem is that severed nerves in the Central Nervous System do not reconnect, so the detached brain would not get any sensory input. Since sensory input is necessary for maintaining cortical tone, this drastic loss would lead to a total deterioration of function,” says neuropsychologist Joyce Schenkein, from Touro College, New York City.

“Assuming that the useless body does not have a progressive disease, but is paralysed, more likely, technology would be directed toward creating an avatar. The trapped person would be able to control a robotic creature that can do things for him.” So the science so far is more like The Matrix, than Blade Runner.

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Synthetic organs

Transplanting other organs, such as kidneys, is pretty commonplace. But, what about growing synthetic organs for transplant? Using stem cells, scientists have been able to generate human heart, brain, kidney and bowel tissue in the lab. But these are only being used to understand the way these organs function and are incredibly simplistic versions of the real thing.


When it comes to synthetic organs, made out of machine parts rather than human tissue, there has also been a lot of progress. Artificial hearts can be used to support failing hearts, while cardiopulmonary bypass machines can provide the functions of both the heart and lungs for a few hours at a time.

However, we’re still a long way from being able to create safe human organs from machine parts. Just this week, itwas revealed that synthetic windpipes linked to disgraced surgeon Paolo Macchiarini were used in humans without being approved for clinical use. "It’s very serious and it’s quite frightening to think that someone could be manufacturing this kind of device without knowing the regulations that govern it," transplantation surgeon Stephen Wigmore from the University of Edinburgh in the UK, who oversaw the inquiry, told The Guardian.

Bionic eyes

When it comes to eyesight, things are a bit further ahead. In 2010, Robert Greenberg, CEO of Second Sight, brought a viable retinal prosthesis to market, and returned at least some visual acuity to sightless patients. This was the first version of the Argus II Bionic Eye.

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Last year, the NHS said it would pay for ten patients to receive these bionic eyes, to treat an inherited form of blindness. These work by capturing light using a mini camera on glasses worn by the patient, which is converted into electrical pulses transmitted into electrodes attached to the retina. Five patients are being treated at Manchester Royal Eye Hospital and five at Moorfields Eye Hospital this year.

"Having spent half my life in darkness, I can now tell when my grandchildren run towards me and make out lights twinkling on Christmas trees,” said Keith Hayman, a 68-year-old and from Lancashire who was fitted with the bionic eye in Manchester. "I would be talking to a friend, who might have walked off and I couldn’t tell and kept talking to myself, this doesn’t happen any more, because I can tell when they have gone.”


Can machines ever be more human than human?

Whether or not machines can ever be described as human or have consciousness is a question many academics continue to struggle with. In 2015, a robot passed a self-awareness test called the classic King’s Wise Men puzzle, which meant it knew when it was speaking. While this is far from showing consciousness, it’s a step in the right direction.

Some mathematicians are coming up with complex theories to describe the level at which a machine can show consciousness. However, even if these tests are passed, it does not necessarily make the android human.

For some of these questions, such as what makes a machine human-like, it will be up to artists working on science fiction, and not scientists, to continue to provide answers. "Knowledge from scientific research is generated through a very empirical process that, under strictly controlled conditions, produces verifiable and reproducible end-points that we consider to be truths,” says Dr. Kumud Dhital, a transplant surgeon at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney. “Artists, on the other hand, are not working so strictly with this notion of truth. They have a luxurious liberty to explore far broader theoretical or philosophical concepts. This gives them enormous space and leverage to provoke us with questions we normally wouldn't consider or have the time to reflect upon.”