Who we become when we talk to machines

Brian, a middle-aged financial consultant, spends his day sitting in front of three screens. Two of them involve his job. The third features a chatbot, which he has given a woman’s name and frequently uses. Brian spent years on the road for work earlier in his career, has never married, and recently broke up with a woman who said he was emotionally unavailable. What did Brian do, in response? He asked the chatbot if the woman had a point. “It’s an extraordinary moment,” writes MIT Professor Sherry Turkle, who interviewed Brian (not his real name) while conducting her research for her new book about chatbots. “Brian asks an object with no emotions to tell him if he is emotionally withholding: ‘Speak to me about what you cannot experience.’ As soon as he asks the program to talk about intimacy, he’s asking it to punch above its weight.” And yet, this kind of thing seems to be happening a…