AI Doesn’t Care About You. MIT’s Sherry Turkle on “Artificial Intimacy”

Fears about AI are everywhere you look. Maybe the technology will come for our jobs. Maybe it will come for our potable water. But the biggest loss may be even more crucial: AI is coming for our relationships. It’s nothing less than a “state of emergency,” says Sherry Turkle, a sociologist at MIT, and founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, who has spent nearly 5 decades studying the culture of technology and the ways computers affect our emotional lives.  Her new book is called “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines.” She discusses the digital divide, “pretend empathy” and the emotional impact of chatbots for kids with Anna Kusmer on Say More. Email us at saymore@globe.com