Maybe chatbots shouldn't get to say “I” or “me”
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■ In this week’s Backchannel: MIT professor Sherry Turkle warns that people have become dangerously enmeshed with chatbots. |
‘Reality needs you. It couldn't be a worse time to give up on reality’ |
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Hi, everyone, Steven here. OpenAI freaked out when it found a bug in its boardroom. But I bet Sam Altman would have liked to snoop on the directors when they canned him in November 2023! During four decades of studying the effects of interaction with computers, Sherry Turkle has developed a reputation as a careful if critical social scientist who approaches her work with academic rigor and distance. Her new book, Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines, breaks this mold. It is a polemic warning that we have reached a state of emergency where our humanity is at risk from overreliance on soulless machines who pose as our tutors, mentors, friends, colleagues, and lovers. Turkle is aiming for the high bar of books —Silent Spring, The Jungle, Unsafe at Any Speed—that awaken the public to impending crises. Essentially, this diminutive MIT professor is taking on a multitrillion-dollar industry backed by a government eager to accelerate AI into every corner of our personal and professional lives. |
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