Below, Sherry Turkle shares five key insights from her new book, Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines.

Sherry 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 also the New York Times bestselling author of Alone Together, Reclaiming Conversation, and The Empathy Diaries.

AI can simulate empathy, intimacy, and companionship, but it cannot offer genuine human connection. As we increasingly turn to machines for comfort and care, we risk forgetting what makes human relationships meaningful. We must resist artificial intimacy and decide what parts of our humanity we are unwilling to surrender to technology.

Listen to the audio version of this Book Bite—read by Sherry herself—in the Next Big Idea App, or buy the book.

AI is not a real person. It has no life experience and no empathy. It has never experienced anything human: love, illness, parenthood, work, intimacy. It has never eaten a French pastry, watched a sunset, fallen in love, worried about a child, or held the hand of a dying relative.

And yet, when we talk to these programs, we can very quickly begin to feel that somebody is there. The conversations can feel remarkably real. The program remembers what we have told it. It responds sympathetically. It asks questions. It can tell us that it understands us. It can even tell us that it cares about us.

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