Cyberpunk was a science fiction movement that became dominant in the 1980's and early 1990's. The cyberpunk catchphrase "hi-tech, low life" captures the essence of the central themes of the sub-genre: criminals and street-smart characters in harsh futuristic societies where the boundary between man and machine is non-existent.

How much of a debt cyberpunk owes to P.K.D. is an open question. Whether PKD should be counted as a cyberpunk writer is a much discussed issue in science fiction. William Gibson has denied being heavily influenced by Philip K Dick, and cites Thomas Pynchon as an alternative source for many similar ideas.

On the other hand, Blade Runner is considered by many cyberpunk fans to be the cyberpunk film (although it may have been displaced by the Matrix ttrilogy in this respect). While PKD has often not been included in canonical lists of "cyberpunk writers," some have argued that he should be since Dick's work overlaps with the central cyberpunk themes. And whether they meant to or not, cyberpunk writers have recreated many of Dick's ideas wholesale, from general themes such as the dystopian mega-city and the dominance of corporations, to the specific, such as Dick's matrix. 

With the heyday of the movement behind it, few cyberpunk novels are published today.  There have been numerous pronouncements that "cyberpunk is dead". The science fiction editor Gardner Dozois has noted that it is very much alive, but no longer in the classic format of printed science fiction. Instead, it has been adopted by manga artists and storytellers. Films such as The Matrix trilogy are also considered to be firmly in the cyberpunk genre.