Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines

"One in every five US adults has chatted with an AI romantic partner, and 83% of Gen Z-ers say they could form a "deep emotional bond" with one. Nearly 75% of teens and one third of adults use AI for companionship, and 23% prefer these AI friends over humans. Increasingly, AI is replacing teachers, caregivers, and therapists, with 28% of US adults having used it for mental health support. Chatbots respond to the fantasy of the perfect companion. They will always be there for us, listen to us, and flatter us-and ask for nothing in return. But these artificially intimate machines, warns Sherry Turkle, are producing a generation more alienated, depressed, and alone than ever before. Turkle has spent decades studying how digital technologies isolate us from one another. Now, in her long anticipated follow-up to Reclaiming Conversation, she interrogates what we lose when we outsource our emotional lives to AI: by embracing chatbots as friends and confidants, therapists and elder care providers, teachers and mentors, and even romantic partners. When we elevate machines to the status of humans, she argues, we reduce our own capabilities to what machines can offer: the mere performance of intimacy, empathy, and love. And the more emotional care we expect from our chatbots, the less we expect from and give to each other. A blend of intimate storytelling, lucid commentary, and shocking case studies, ARTIFICIAL INTIMACY is both an urgent warning and roadmap for reclaiming our humanity in the age of AI"--