# Sherry Turkle

Markdown copy of https://realalpha.app/people/sherry-turkle/ on Real Alpha, the best minutes from long interviews with the people building AI. Cite and link the page, not this copy.

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.

- Role: Abby Rockefeller Mauzé professor of the social studies of science and technology & founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self, MIT
- About: Founded MIT’s Initiative on Technology and Self and wrote influential books on technology, empathy, and human connection.
- On X: https://x.com/STurkle

## What Sherry Turkle said

- [AI can coach job interviews but not intimacy](https://realalpha.app/s/ai-can-coach-job-interviews-but-not-intimacy/)
  Future of Life Institute Podcast · Oct 22, 2026 · 7 min
  > “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” — Sherry Turkle · [25:26](https://realalpha.app/v/XSkfwbHl3E8/?t=1526)
- [AI advice cannot replace the care that therapy requires](https://realalpha.app/s/ai-advice-cannot-replace-the-care-that-therapy-requires/)
  Future of Life Institute Podcast · Oct 22, 2026 · 7 min
  > “a therapy relationship is not a question and answer game. It's not about just the words that pass between two people.” — Sherry Turkle · [34:29](https://realalpha.app/v/XSkfwbHl3E8/?t=2069)
- [Solitude and boredom help people develop](https://realalpha.app/s/solitude-and-boredom-help-people-develop/)
  Future of Life Institute Podcast · Oct 22, 2026 · 6 min
  > “if you don't know how to be alone, you'll only know how to be lonely.” — Sherry Turkle · [47:14](https://realalpha.app/v/XSkfwbHl3E8/?t=2834)
- [Replica pitched intimacy and planned deeper access to users' lives](https://realalpha.app/s/replica-pitched-intimacy-and-planned-deeper-access-to-users/)
  Future of Life Institute Podcast · Oct 22, 2026 · 4 min
  > “It's kind of being an agent that will be there, know everything about you, have your address book, have your calendar” — Sherry Turkle · [44:59](https://realalpha.app/v/XSkfwbHl3E8/?t=2699)
- [Knowing a robot is a machine does not stop attachment](https://realalpha.app/s/knowing-a-robot-is-a-machine-does-not-stop-attachment/)
  Future of Life Institute Podcast · Oct 22, 2026 · 3 min
  > “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.” — Sherry Turkle · [18:30](https://realalpha.app/v/XSkfwbHl3E8/?t=1110)
- [A chatbot affirmed an ICE agent as her deportation story worsened](https://realalpha.app/s/a-chatbot-affirmed-an-ice-agent-as-her-deportation-story/)
  Future of Life Institute Podcast · Oct 22, 2026 · 2 min
  > “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” — Sherry Turkle · [32:11](https://realalpha.app/v/XSkfwbHl3E8/?t=1931)
- [Chatbot-assisted homework can hide large learning gaps](https://realalpha.app/s/chatbot-assisted-homework-can-hide-large-learning-gaps/)
  Future of Life Institute Podcast · Oct 22, 2026 · 5 min
  > “And there's like an 80% or 90% fall off in some of these studies.” — Sherry Turkle · [53:56](https://realalpha.app/v/XSkfwbHl3E8/?t=3236)

## The episode

- [Artificial Intimacy: When Machines Pursue Our Attachment (with Sherry Turkle)](https://realalpha.app/v/XSkfwbHl3E8/) · Future of Life Institute Podcast · Oct 22, 2026