Unit 1: Moves in Argument: "There Will Never Be an Age of Artificial Intimacy," by Sherry Turkle

Years ago I spoke with a 16-year-old girl who was considering the idea of having a computer companion in the future, and she described the upside to me.

It’s not that the robot she’d imagined, a vastly more sophisticated Siri, was so inspiring.

Back then I thought her comments seemed prescient.

Now I find them timely.

“There are people who have tried to make friends, but stumbled so badly that they’ve given up,” she said.

This girl had grown up in the time of Siri, a conversational object presented as an empathy machine — a thing that could understand her.

But there is something she may have been too young to understand — or, like a lot of us — prone to forget when we talk to machines.

Yet through our interactions with these machines, we seem to ignore this fact; we act as though the emotional ties we form with them will be reciprocal, and real, as though there is a right kind of emotional tie that can be formed with objects that have no emotions at all.

In our manufacturing and marketing of these machines, we encourage children to develop an emotional tie that is sure to lead to an empathic dead end.

On top of this, it has become fashionable for psychologists to critique empathy, a unique form of human connection, just at a time when we are embarking on relationships with objects with none to give.

On top of this, it has become fashionable for psychologists to critique empathy, a unique form of human connection, just at a time when we are embarking on relationships with objects with none to give.

We can try to use technology to cure Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, which would be a blessing, but that blessing is not a reason to move from artificial brain enhancement to artificial intimacy.

We can try to use technology to cure Parkinson’s or Alzheimer’s, which would be a blessing, but that blessing is not a reason to move from artificial brain enhancement to artificial intimacy.

The narrative begins with the idea that companionate robots would be “better than nothing,” better because there aren’t enough people to teach, love and tend to people.

Unlike people, they would not abandon you or get sick and die.

There is an epidemic of loneliness; robots will make this a thing of the past.

People crave immortality; our re-embodiment in machines will make that possible.

People crave immortality; our re-embodiment in machines will make that possible.

And above all, this: It is our nature, our human nature, to evolve toward our maximum potential; it is our human destiny to evolve into the superior cognitive beings of a robotic future.

And above all, this: It is our nature, our human nature, to evolve toward our maximum potential; it is our human destiny to evolve into the superior cognitive beings of a robotic future.

I stand accused by my happy technologist colleagues and their unrelenting enthusiasm.

I stand accused by my happy technologist colleagues and their unrelenting enthusiasm.

First, that it is our human nature to want to evolve toward being more than human and, ultimately, immortal.

It is an intelligence that is tempered with knowledge of our bodies, of our place in families and history.

We diminish as the seeming empathy of the machine increases.

In life, you are struck by the importance of presence, of the small moments of meaning, the miracle of your child’s breath, the feelings of deep human connection.

To remember why it matters, to remember what we cherish.