The Voight-Kampff machine is a device featured in the Blade Runner film and the novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by Philip K. Dick. It is used by special police officers known as Blade Runners to distinguish human beings from artificial humanoids called Replicants.

How Does the Voight-Kampff Machine Work?

Empathy-Based Testing

The Voight-Kampff test is fundamentally an empathy test, based on the premise that Replicants, despite being biologically similar to humans, lack genuine human empathy.
The test involves a series of carefully worded, emotionally provocative questions and scenarios intended to elicit involuntary physiological responses associated with empathy. (Mostly involving animals)

Physiological Measurements

The machine monitors several bodily functions during questioning:

Respiration rate
Heart rate
Blush response (capillary dilation)
Pupillary dilation and iris muscle contractions

The device features a camera-equipped arm that focuses on the subject’s eye, magnifying it on a monitor for the examiner to observe subtle changes.

Procedure

The Blade Runner sits across from the subject, with the Voight-Kampff machine placed between them.
The examiner asks a series of empathy-eliciting questions while the machine records and displays the subject’s physiological reactions.
Typically, it takes about 20–30 questions to determine if someone is a Replicant, though more advanced models (like Rachael) may require over 100 questions.

Design and Functionality

The machine resembles a thick laptop with a protruding armature for sensory readings, a main monitor for eye observation, and additional controls and indicators.
It operates similarly to a polygraph (lie detector), but with added focus on involuntary visual and emotional cues.

Purpose and Effectiveness

The Voight-Kampff test is used because Replicants are almost indistinguishable from humans in appearance and biology, making standard identification methods ineffective.
In-universe, the test’s effectiveness is rooted in the belief that only humans can exhibit true empathy, while Replicants will fail to respond appropriately to emotionally charged scenarios.
Some expanded universe sources and later interpretations suggest the test may function as much by stressing Replicants (who fear being discovered and "retired") as by truly measuring empathy, raising questions about its scientific validity.

The Voight-Kampff machine is a sophisticated empathy-testing device, central to the Blade Runner universe, designed to reveal Replicants by measuring involuntary physiological reactions to emotionally charged scenarios-responses believed to be uniquely human.

Do robots dream of unicorns? I guess that depends on which of the 5 edits of the film you’re watching.

Hope you like the ad you might find in a magazine in that world!