Sam Harris speaks with Sherry Turkle about her new book, Artificial Intimacy. They discuss the early optimism of the internet, the attention economy, the loss of solitude and boredom, the decline of empathy, whether the performance of empathy can ever be enough, AI as therapist, the first-person pronoun as the “original sin” of generative AI, humanoid robots and consciousness, loneliness among older people, and other topics.

Sherry Turkle is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT and the founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. She is the New York Times bestselling author of Alone Together, Reclaiming Conversation, and The Empathy Diaries. Turkle’s most recent book is Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines.

Website: sherryturkle.com

X: @STurkle