Free Reclaiming Conversation by Sherry Turkle Page A

circumstances.
Intelligence
and
affective
have changed their meaning to accommodate what machines can do. But now the words
caring
,
friend
,
companionship
, and
conversation
?
    A lot is at stake in these words. They are not yet lost. We need to remember these words and this conversation before we don’t know how to have it. Or before we think we can have it with a machine.
    We paint ourselves into a corner where we endanger more than words.
    I talk of our having arrived at a “robotic moment,” not because we have built robots that can be our companions but because we are willing to consider becoming theirs. I find people increasingly open to the idea that in the near future, machine companionship will be sufficient unto the day. People tell me that if a machine could give them the “feeling” of being intimately understood, that might be understanding enough. Or intimacy enough.
    The ironies are substantial. We turn toward artificial intelligence for conversation just at the moment that we are in flight from conversations with each other.
    More generally, in our fourth-chair conversations, we imagine ourselves in a new kind of world where machines talk to each other to make our lives easier. But who will we become in this world we call friction-free where machines (and without our doing any talking at all!) will know what we want, sometimes even before we do? They will know all about our online lives, so they’ll know our taste in music, art, politics, clothes, books, and food. They’ll know who we like and where we travel.
    In that world, your smartphone will signal your favorite coffee shop as you set out in the morning to get a latte, which of course will bewaiting for you when you arrive, exactly as you want it. In the spirit of friction-free, your phone will be able to reroute and guide you so that you can avoid your ex-girlfriend and see only designated friends on your path. But who said that a life without conflict, without being reminded of past mistakes, past pain, or one where you can avoid rubbing shoulders with troublesome people, is good? Was it the same person who said that life shouldn’t have boring bits? In this case, if technology gives us the feeling that we can communicate with total control, life’s contingencies become a problem. Just because technology can help us solve a “problem” doesn’t mean it was a problem in the first place .
Paths Forward
    I explore the flight from conversation in digital culture by looking at big questions and small details. I begin with the conversations of solitude, romance, friendship, and family life and end with our desire to chat with robots. I report on the current state of conversation in schools, universities, and corporations, looking at children as they develop and adults as they love, learn, and work. In every case, I describe our vulnerability to settling for mere connection—why it tempts—and I make the case for reclaiming the richness of conversation.
    Reclaiming conversation won’t be easy. We resist: It sometimes seems that we want to be taken away from the conversations that count. So I go to meetings where laptops are open and phones turned on. Yet the participants admit that constant interruptions are interfering with group work. When I ask the participants why they all continue to bring their devices to meetings, they say, “For emergencies.” I inquire further, and they admit that it’s not so much about emergencies—they’re bored, or they see an opportunity to double down on their emails. And other reasons come up: Some feel so much pressure to outsmart their peers that when they feel they can’t, they turn to their phones, pretending to do something else more “urgent” than anything that could be going on inthe meeting. And sometimes the idea of “emergencies” on their phones is a strategy to step away from each other and their differences, to defer