Sherry Turkle – författare

Technology has become the architect of our intimacies. Online, we fall prey to the illusion of companionship, gathering thousands of Twitter and Facebook friends, and confusing tweets and wall posts with authentic communication. But this relentless connection leads to a new solitude. We turn to new technology to fill the void, but as MIT technology and society specialist Sherry Turkle argues, as technology ramps up, our emotional lives ramp down. Even the presence of sociable robots in our lives that pretend to demonstrate empathy makes us feel more isolated, as Turkle explains in a new introduction updating the book to the present day. Alone Together is the result of Turkle's nearly fifteen-year exploration of our lives on the digital terrain. Based on interviews with hundreds of children and adults, it describes new, unsettling relationships between friends, lovers, parents, and children, and new instabilities in how we understand privacy and community, intimacy and solitude.

Att föra ett samtal mellan fyra ögon är det mest mänskliga – och mest förmänskligande – av allt vi gör. Genom att skänka varandra vår fulla uppmärksamhet lär vi oss att lyssna. Det är då vi utvecklar vår förmåga till empati. Det är då vi upplever glädjen över att bli hörda, att bli förstådda. Och att samtala utvecklar vår förmåga till självreflektion, alltså det där samtalet vi för med oss själva, som är hörnstenen i vår tidiga utveckling och följer oss genom hela livet. Sherry Turkle, psykolog och sociolog, har under trettio år studerat vår relation till digital teknik. Hon var länge entusiastisk för de möjligheter den skapade men har under senare år undersökt dess baksidor. I "Tillbaka till samtalet" driver Turkle tesen att vi på grund av vårt förhållande till våra smarta telefoner och de möjligheter till kommunikation de medför har blivit allt sämre på att föra meningsfulla samtal ansikte mot ansikte – den sortens samtal som är förutsättningslöst och spontant, där vi leker med idéer och tillåter oss själva att vara fullständigt närvarande och sårbara. Det är just sådana samtal som främjar empati och intimitet och stärker vårt sociala beteende. I dessa samtal blomstrar det kreativa samarbete som är så nödvändigt inom både utbildning och affärer. Turkle lutar sig år fem år av forskning och intervjuer i familjer, skolor och på arbetsplatser när hon hävdar att vi måste skaffa oss en bättre förståelse för vad mobiltekniken kan, och inte kan, göra för oss. Den för underverk med sig, men det har blivit dags att fundera över om den inte ibland hamnar i vägen för andra saker som är viktiga för oss – och när vi väl har insett att det är så kan vi göra något åt saken: Vi kan både omforma tekniken och förändra vilken roll den spelar i våra liv. This is a persuasive and intimate book, one that explores the minutiae of human relationships. Turkle uses our experiences to shame us, showing how, phones in hand, we turn away from our children, friends and co-workers, even from ourselves. / Washington Post Reclaiming Conversation is best appreciated as a sophisticated self-help book. It makes a compelling case that children develop better, students learn better, and employees perform better when their monitors set good examples and carve our spaces for face-to-face interactions. /Jonathan Franzen, The New York Times Book Review

Social media came for our attention - now Chatbots are coming for our relationships. Nearly one-third of adults now turn to AI programmes like ChatGPT for companionship. For Gen Z, the figures are even more stark: eight out of ten say they could form a deep emotional attachment with a machine.It's not hard to see why. Chatbots offer the fantasy of the perfect partner: endlessly available, endlessly attentive, always affirming. But as MIT professor Sherry Turkle discovers by speaking to people who use chatbots as confidants, therapists, carers and lovers, these hallucinatory bonds come at great cost. The more we ask machines to care for us, the less we expect from - and give to - other people. AI deepens the loneliness it claims to cure.For decades, Turkle has been the leading voice on how digital technologies erode connection. Now, blending vivid storytelling with sharp cultural critique, she turns her attention to a technology that has convinced so many that the performance of empathy is empathy enough. Essential reading for parents and children, clinicians and patients, managers and employees, Artificial Intimacy offers both a cautionary tale and a roadmap for being human in the age of AI."In a time in which the ways we communicate and connect are constantly changing, and not always for the better, Sherry Turkle provides a much needed voice of caution and reason to help explain what the f*** is going on." Aziz Ansari on Reclaiming Conversation

"In a time in which the ways we communicate and connect are constantly changing, and not always for the better, Sherry Turkle provides a much needed voice of caution and reason to help explain what the f*** is going on." Aziz Ansari on Reclaiming ConversationSocial media came for our attention - now Chatbots are coming for our relationships. Nearly one-third of adults now turn to AI programmes like ChatGPT for companionship. For Gen Z, the figures are even more stark: eight out of ten say they could form a deep emotional attachment with a machine.It's not hard to see why. Chatbots offer the fantasy of the perfect partner: endlessly available, endlessly attentive, always affirming. But as MIT professor Sherry Turkle discovers by speaking to people who use chatbots as confidants, therapists, carers and lovers, these hallucinatory bonds come at great cost. The more we ask machines to care for us, the less we expect from - and give to - other people. AI deepens the loneliness it claims to cure.For decades, Turkle has been the leading voice on how digital technologies erode connection. Now, blending vivid storytelling with sharp cultural critique, she turns her attention to a technology that has convinced so many that the performance of empathy is empathy enough. Essential reading for parents and children, clinicians and patients, managers and employees, Artificial Intimacy offers both a cautionary tale and a roadmap for being human in the age of AI.

'Dynasty 1991', provides a portrayal of the last years of Lacan's life and the events that unfolded in the years following his death in 1981.