Robotic Moment: Who Do We Become When We Talk to Machines? (Aspen Lecture)

Conversation is facing a crisis in our culture. We regularly put people on “pause” in conversation to check our phones. We treat machines as if they are almost human. We want technology to step up, as we ask humans to step back. And having nothing to forget about how we used to relate to one another, children embrace these new rules for talking to machines. In this talk, Sherry Turkle, MIT professor of the social studies of science and technology and author of “Reclaiming Conversation: The Power of Talk in a Digital Age,” explains how we have arrived at this “robotic moment.” She explores what she calls the “four fantasies of the robotic relationship” and the impact our dwindling face-to-face conversations have on empathy.