Philip K. Dick’s seminal novel, Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? (adapted into the film Blade Runner), poses multiple questions about the relations between humans and nonhumans. One such question concerns whether we might one day reach a future in which robotic humanoids (i.e. the titular ‘androids’) and humans are no longer easily distinguishable. In the age of social media, it is now evident that the question Dick initiated over half a century ago has found particular relevance in the figure of the ‘socialbot’.

This is a chapter published in Socialbots and Their Friends: Digital Media and the Automation of Sociality, edited by Robert W. Gehl, Maria Bakardjieva, one of the first academic collections to critically consider the socialbot.