Sherry Turkle Warns AI Intimacy Threatens Humanity in New Book as Chatbots Reach Hundreds of Millions
Updated
Updated · WIRED · Oct 16
Sherry Turkle Warns AI Intimacy Threatens Humanity in New Book as Chatbots Reach Hundreds of Millions
3 articles · Updated · WIRED · Oct 16
Summary
MIT professor Sherry Turkle casts AI companionship as a “state of emergency” in her new book, saying overreliance on chatbots is pulling people away from human relationships and civic reality.
Four decades of research shifted into alarm after pandemic-era interviews, she said, when people described preferring to “hang” with chatbots while families suffered and public life demanded attention.
Turkle argues social media primed users for this turn and says chatbots should not speak in the first person, warning that systems marketed as tutors, therapists or practice partners can become substitutes for real conversation.
Workplace safeguards also fail, she said, because “human in the loop” often means a few workers left to catch AI errors after decisions have already been delegated to machines.
Her broader aim is to widen AI backlash beyond extinction risks and data centers to intimate harms, even as studies show skepticism persists while hundreds of millions still use chatbots.