David F. Dufty

How do you know your best friend is human instead of a really good android replica? For that matter, how do you know you're human? How do you know what's a real memory and what's false? What if God is a vast artificial intelligence that evolved from the creation of some alien race? Philip K. Dick wrote prolifically on these ideas - best known outside the sf community for movie adaptations like Blade Runner or Total Recall.

In 2005, a small group of eclectic researchers in diverse fields like show more simulation of human emotion, artificial intelligence and robotics developed an android replica of PKD capable of conversing with a person using PKD's words from the huge library of writings, interviews and talks left after his death. The result - when it worked - was an eerily lifelike copy, oddly mirroring some of PKD's more interesting stories. And in a fitting ending, the android head was lost on an airplane after making a media splash, never to be seen again!

Dufty's How To Build an Android is a fascinating non-technical retelling of how Phil was designed, built and demonstrated, through the fateful airplane ride on the way to a presentation at Google. It's a pretty good narrative, and Dufty had the benefit of being on the periphery of the story, so there's an insider feel to his work. The most interesting parts are those times where he gives transcripts of Phil's conversations - especially the "monologues" where his language processor goes haywire. These are remarkably like the ramblings of PKD later in life after years of drugs and paranoia affected his thinking.

Recommended. It's an interesting story well told. show less

I had a very mixed reaction to this book. I'm into Philip K. Dick, I am interested in artificial intelligence and robotics, and this book delivered lots of repeatable factoids in those arenas. BUT it also kept rubbing me the wrong way. I understand that this is a book of non-fiction and that the major players in this story were all cis white men. BUT even when women did show up, the way they were written about left a bad taste in my mouth. And they didn't show up very often. A series of show more Hanson's ex-girlfriends, mostly unnamed, who serve as models for Hanson's early robotic heads. Olney's wife, who is mentioned mostly in the context of being annoyed when he isn't home for dinner. Matthew's girlfriend, who does at least get a name (Sarah Petschonek), but is described ONLY as his girlfriend, DESPITE THE FACT that she also works in the same building, so undoubtably has SOME area of expertise or life of her own, even if it isn't robotics. AND THEN there is the conversational "AI" program the author mentions writing in class, who is gendered as female and whose entire "personality" is making computer-pun come-ons? I didn't set out looking for it, but all the same it became EXHAUSTING. I wanted to like this more, because the topic was deeply interesting, but it was just okay. show less

A book about WW2 code breaking in the Pacific - a different tale from Bltechley Park/Enigma fame, but just as fascinating.
A book about war time code breaking is a difficult task. The documentary evidence is secret for decades, and code breaking is only interesting to most people for about 10 pages.
The author of this book has done a marvellous job of bring the esoteric and arcane details to life. The readers gets to know the people involved - quirks and all. The challenges of code breaking show more are presented, but not laboured. The reality of the code-breakers task is made clear - very often a few steps forward, before hitting a blank wall when cyphers get changed by the enemy.
The story is told against the broader events of the Pacific/Japan war which gives explicit context to the intelligence, and how it is used.
I started reading with low expectations, and was very pleasantly surprised by my read. show less

Rating: 3.5* of five

The Publisher Says: In late January 2006, a young robotocist on the way to Google headquarters lost an overnight bag on a flight somewhere between Dallas and Las Vegas. In it was a fully functional head of the android replica of Philip K. Dick, cult science-fiction writer and counterculture guru. It has never been recovered.

In a story that echoes some of the most paranoid fantasies of a Dick novel, readers get a fascinating inside look at the scientists and technology show more that made this amazing android possible. The author, who was a fellow researcher at the University of Memphis Institute of Intelligent Systems while the android was being built, introduces readers to the cutting-edge technology in robotics, artificial intelligence, and sculpture that came together in this remarkable machine and captured the imagination of scientists, artists, and science-fiction fans alike. And there are great stories about Dick himself—his inspired yet deeply pessimistic worldview, his bizarre lifestyle, and his enduring creative legacy. In the tradition of popular science classics like Packing for Mars and The Disappearing Spoon, How to Build an Android is entertaining and informative—popular science at its best.

My Review: ANOTHER year-old LibraryThing Early Reviewers win! Oh the shame, the shame!

If you don't know who Philip K. Dick is, well first of all what are you doing being friends with me, and second, this book will read like a novel whose main joke is about something you don't understand. Like "ain't nobody got time for that" if you've never seen the memes.

I read this book with a sort of befuddled sensation. I liked it, I even thought young Dufty was a decent prose stylist. But, I kept wondering, why on earth does this book need to exist? Twenty-six United States dollars for a 250-page exploration of the whys and wherefores of an android that no longer exists, can't be seen and therefore is conjured up only in descriptions such as this that will make more sense to geeks than to thee and me. (Well, me anyway.)

Dick casts a long shadow in our world, Blade Runner and A Scanner Darkly and Total Recall being among the movies made from his bleak, unsettlingly predictive fiction. He was a weird man, he wrote weird books, and thought strange thoughts that were way far out in front of the culture. Pretty much nailed it, though, did our Phil. It makes reading his work strangely current.

But here, Dufty (who was a bit player at best and a bystander if we're honest) tells of the obsessive fascination Dick has for the seriously geeky boffins who spend their paid work hours trying to make SF in to reality. It is astonishing to me that they get paychecks for doing this stuff. They'd do it for free, sleep in the office and eat Cheetos and hot dogs, you just know they would so long as the parts bin is open and the computers come on when they need them. It's a slightly disturbing sensation to watch the boys (all males, natch) play in the sandbox and create something so (apparently, it's vanished so you and I will never know) lifelike because they just want to.

I am interested in the way our material culture is manipulated and massaged and transformed by science's application to technology. If you are too, this book will keep the pages turning. If you're a PhilDickian cultist, this book will make for some riveting reading. Absent those interests, there are better ways to spend both your eyeblinks and your spondulix. show less