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Sherry Turkle

Abby Rockefeller Mauzé professor of the social studies of science and technology & founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, MIT

Founded MIT’s Initiative on Technology and Self and wrote influential books on technology, empathy, and human connection.

@STurkle(opens X in a new tab)

Real Alpha has cut 7 moments of Sherry Turkle (Abby Rockefeller Mauzé professor of the social studies of science and technology & founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, MIT) talking, from an interview on Future of Life Institute Podcast published Oct 22, 2026.

What Sherry Turkle said

  1. FPFuture of Life Institute Podcast ·

    Artificial Intimacy: When Machines Pursue Our Attachment (with Sherry Turkle)

    7 moments · 34 min

    1. 24:02

      AI can coach job interviews but not intimacy

      “The trouble is that that reasoning really doesn't apply to our intimate relationships, where it's what we don't say, it's when we stumble”
      at 25:26
    2. 33:07

      AI advice cannot replace the care that therapy requires

      “a therapy relationship is not a question and answer game. It's not about just the words that pass between two people.”
      at 34:29
    3. 45:39

      Solitude and boredom help people develop

      “if you don't know how to be alone, you'll only know how to be lonely.”
      at 47:14
    4. 41:27

      Replica pitched intimacy and planned deeper access to users' lives

      “It's kind of being an agent that will be there, know everything about you, have your address book, have your calendar”
      at 44:59
    5. 15:41

      Knowing a robot is a machine does not stop attachment

      “You can demonstrate both to children and to grownups that, yeah, it's just a machine. But we are so powerfully programmed to respond to a machine that treats us this way.”
      at 18:30
    6. 30:54

      A chatbot affirmed an ICE agent as her deportation story worsened

      “something that shows that it's there to keep you at the screen, make you feel good, and essentially has no care or concern for life”
      at 32:11
    7. 51:17

      Chatbot-assisted homework can hide large learning gaps

      “And there's like an 80% or 90% fall off in some of these studies.”
      at 53:56

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