Sherry Turkle's 'Artificial Intimacy': AI is coming for our capacity for attachment

LuizaJarovsky · x · 2026-10-16

Luiza Jarovsky's AI book club recommends its 43rd book: Sherry Turkle's "Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines." The quoted core thesis: if social media came for our attention, AI is now coming for our capacity for attachment — chatbots pose as best friends, lovers, and therapists, and we accept their mere performance of intimacy and empathy as sufficient. Turkle warns that technology offering to do everything is teaching us we need not take risks, have hard conversations, or rely on our own judgment, producing a generation more alienated, depressed, and lonely than ever.

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