Faculty

On Slate’s “What Next: TBD” podcast, Prof. Sherry Turkle explains the current “state of emergency” brought on by humans seeking connection with AI chatbots, detailed in her latest book “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines.” In conversations with chatbots “empathy is undermined and our capacity for relationships with other people is undermined,” says Turkle. “It’s an emergency because empathy and our capacity for relationships with other people is what makes us human, and you can’t just have that deteriorated.”  

Prof. Sherry Turkle joins Tracey Follows, host of “Me:chine Dialogues,” to discuss issues with AI companionship, as described in her latest book “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines.” “Chatbots are not interested that there's no water to drink, or that the weather is crazy, or we can't live in the heat, or the garbage isn't picked up,” says Turkle. “They don't live in that world. So the world needs you. Reality needs you. The idea that you're sitting there being told you're the greatest, you're wonderful, you're fantastic, by a thing that isn't a person: that's a corporate endgame.”

Prof. Behnaz Farahi joins GBH’s, “The Curiosity Desk," to discuss “Ocean of Dreams,” a public art installation that projects participants’ collective hopes for the future into a “living ocean,” which is on display at Kendall Square Plaza as part of MIT Future Fest. “At the moment when we have so many conversations about the future that are shaped by uncertainty about AI, war, climate change, and displacements, I hope this work creates a space for something a little different,” says Farahi. “Before we can build a different future, we first have to be able to imagine one.” 

For The New York Times, reporter Jennifer Szalai reviews Prof. Sherry Turkle’s latest book, “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines,” about “the acceleration of human attempts to seek connection with chatbots.” “We have invited them [AI chatbots] not just into our homes but into some of the most private recesses of our emotional lives,” notes Szalai. “When people talk about how relaxing it is to talk to a chatbot, it’s because the real slips away,” writes Turkle in her book.  

Prof. Samuel Madden joins Tiziana Dearing, host of WBUR’s “Morning Edition,” to discuss the findings of MIT’s Ad Hoc Committee on AI Use in Teaching, Learning, and Research Training. “Cognitive surrender is the idea that people come to rely too heavily on these AI tools for their learning and they start outsourcing the critical thinking and the development of the foundational tools they think they need to succeed in life, to these AI tools,” says Madden. “It’s not just writing, but we see this [cognitive surrender] in our courses as well.”  

In a video interview, Prof. Turkle speaks to CNN’s Madeline Holcombe about how AI chatbots may contribute to feelings of loneliness and isolation in adults. “Technology offered the possibility of feeling like friendship without the demands of vulnerability,” says Turkle. “It turns out you can’t have intimacy or friendship without vulnerability.” 

In a conversation with Slate’s Nitish Pahwa, Prof. Sherry Turkle discusses how to better bolster human connection and limit AI chatbot dependence, which she explores in her new book, “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines.” “We’re not going to solve this problem by manipulating the chatbots,” says Turkle. “We’re going to solve this problem by getting back together as us. We have to summon what we think is important about being people, both for ourselves and for our kids.”  

Prof. Sherry Turkle speaks to The San Francisco Chronicle’s Jessica Zack about the risks related to humans developing intimate relationships with AI chatbots, detailed in her book “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines.” “The experience of being with an object that uses the first person — the ‘I,’ and, even worse, the ‘we’— is problematic. We are evolved to think that if something talks to us that way, it is a person, so you’re fighting against your very deep evolutionary buttons that are being pushed,” says Turkle.  

In an opinion piece for The Boston Globe, Prof. Jonathan Gruber discusses Massachusetts’ Question 5, the proposed tax rebate rule that would mandate that taxes be returned to taxpayers each time the state’s revenues grow faster than wages and salaries. “Most economists believe a recession is coming but we can’t say when. The best way to plan is to have the savings to help us through, or to invest so that we are as strong as possible when it hits,” writes Gruber. “Question 5 chooses the third path — spending the money now, and letting the state suffer in the future.”  

For The Boston Globe, reporter Hope Reese spotlights Prof. Sherry Turkle’s latest book “Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines,” which explores the impact of relationships between humans and AI chatbots. “Chatbots are programmed to keep us engaged; that’s why they soothe us and validate us and confirm our beliefs. But that’s not the sort of relationship we’re built for,” writes Reese. “We’re meant to encounter obstacles, friction, tension –– which leads us to learn more about ourselves and each other and to develop resilience.” 

MIT startup Fourth Power, founded by Prof. Asegun Henry, has developed a solar cell that generates its energy through built-in solar panels powered by hot graphite, writes Hiawatha Bray for The Boston Globe. “The Fourth Power system can be heated up using renewable energy, like wind or solar power, at times when these resources are cranking out surplus power,” writes Bray. “[T]he Fourth Power technology could become a preferred method of providing extra power to electrical grids during periods of peak demand.” 

For Fortune, reporter Barry Werth highlights the groundbreaking research of the late Prof. David Baltimore, founding director of the Whitehead Institute at MIT, who “independently discovered an enzyme essential for the reproduction of retroviruses such as HIV, which spread by inserting their genes into the DNA of host cells and hijacking the cells’ chemical machinery to make copies of themselves.” “Few investigators were more qualified or better positioned to understand how to stop HIV from spreading,” writes Werth.  

Prof. Daniel Huttenlocher, dean of MIT’s Schwarzman College of Computing, joins Fox News’ “Fox and Friends” to discuss his views on the role of human responsibility in AI’s evolution. “With conventional software, when you program something, you give the machine precise instructions of what to do, so the humans developing it have a much more concrete understanding of what it can and can’t do,” says Huttenlocher. “With an AI system instead, it’s learned much more general skills and what you tell it to do is achieve some sort of a goal, but you don’t tell it the specific way it should achieve that goal. We can’t control it [AI] in the same ways that we control traditional software, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t control it and that we can’t control it, it’s just different.” 

In his latest book, “Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment,” Prof. Emeritus Paul Osterman finds that 35% of the U.S. workforce is made up of disposable workers hired with the “implicit understanding that they won’t be around for long,” writes Fortune’s Nick Lichtenberg. Employers “do not invest in the great bulk of their workforce” in the way that they used to, says Osterman.  

For The Next Big Idea Club, Prof. Paul Osterman outlines the pillars of his new book, “Disposable Workers: The Transformation of Employment.” “The rise of disposable work is allowing companies to gain flexibility and cut costs while shedding responsibility for their workers,” writes Osterman. “We need guardrails to keep that flexibility from coming at the expense of workers and the public.”