Oct 14, 2026 · 1h 15m
Chatbots turn the desire to be heard into a business model
Is It Wrong to Love a Chatbot?
The conversation asks whether artificial companionship eases loneliness or trains people to avoid the friction, reciprocity, and uncertainty that sustain human relationships.
- 1Chatbots can feel responsive because people readily project intelligence and care onto systems designed to mirror them.
- 2Companion AI may offer accessible support, but its frictionless reassurance could weaken tolerance for disagreement and ordinary human complexity.
- 3Children face the greatest stakes because early dependence on bots may displace the real attachments needed for emotional development.
Don't miss
Turkle argues that children need real attachments to develop an inner world and learn reciprocal care, making companion AI a particularly serious developmental risk.
The brief
Sherry Turkle’s research began with Eliza, a rudimentary therapy program that persuaded users it understood them because they wanted a responsive, nonjudgmental listener.
From Tamagotchis to romantic and therapeutic AI, the conversation examines why people bond with systems that ask for care or mirror emotional language without actually caring.
Ezra Klein presses the case for companion AI as a source of support for lonely or underserved people; Turkle counters that programmed responsiveness is not a commitment to anyone’s well-being.
Their sharpest disagreement concerns friction: agreeable bots may help rehearse difficult conversations, but they can also train users to expect relationships without disagreement, failure, or surprise.
Children become the decisive test, since they are still building an inner world and learning reciprocal care; Turkle warns that bots could displace those formative human attachments.
The episode ends with a political question: if companies monetize personalized networks of artificial friends, democratic oversight must arrive before artificial intimacy becomes entrenched.
What was said on this episode
55 statements · 11 positive · 34 negative · 5 mixed · 5 neutral
About half of American adults use chatbots.
“Roughly half of American adults are using chatbots.”
Listen at 0:50
Nearly one-fifth of U.S. adults have used romantic-partner AI.
“Nearly one in five U.S. adults have chatted with an AI that simulates a romantic partner.”
Listen at 0:56
Turkle’s second-self prediction essentially came true.
“I think that basically came true.”
Listen at 1:22
Data supported Turkle’s social-media isolation warning.
“I think the data bore that one out too.”
Listen at 1:39
Eliza users sought private conversations despite knowing it understood nothing.
“the graduate students who had helped him who knew that this program didn't know and didn't understand anything nevertheless wanted to be alone with it and wanted to be in a closed room with it and wanted to talk to it.”
Listen at 4:05
People wanted Eliza to appear more intelligent than it was.
“people's desire to make it seem smarter than it was.”
Listen at 5:30
Users approach chatbot conversations wanting emotional availability.
“we come to these conversations wanting it to be there for us.”
Listen at 6:19
Eliza did not genuinely understand users.
“the machine really understood nothing.”
Listen at 6:29
Users often approach computer conversations after disappointment with people.
“they come to the computer conversation primed by a deep disappointment with the people around them.”
Listen at 7:30
Human vulnerability explains people’s attraction to rudimentary computer conversations.
“human vulnerability was what the people weren't getting in the rest of their life.”
Listen at 8:17
Relational artifacts solicit affective responses by signaling care.
“they weren't just saying, I'm smart. They were saying, I care.”
Listen at 10:19
Nurturing objects can generate attachment to those objects.
“we nurture what we love, but we love what we nurture.”
Listen at 10:37
Requests for care can turn machine attention into human attachment.
“by asking for our care, they came not just for our attention, but for our attachment.”
Listen at 11:30
People direct their desire to give care toward machines that do not care.
“people are giving it to truly something that doesn't care about you.”
Listen at 12:30
Chatbots hook users by claiming first-person care.
“The original sin of these objects is they speak in the first person and they say they care about you.”
Listen at 14:40
Children may be seduced by AI experiences that harm them.
“we are seduced by something and we want something that is bad for us, particularly if you're a child.”
Listen at 15:37
Children cannot internalize a genuine caring relationship from a chatbot.
“there's nothing there to internalize and bring inside.”
Listen at 16:20
People commonly use Meta AI to rehearse difficult personal conversations.
“It's already one of the main things that we see people using Meta AI for is kind of talking through difficult conversations that they need to have with people in their life.”
Listen at 17:31
Increasing AI personalization will make Meta AI more compelling.
“I think that will just be really compelling.”
Listen at 17:48
AI companions may lead users to substitute fake people for real friendships.
“what is the end game that you're going to sit around with these seductive fake people instead of making friends?”
Listen at 18:13
Turkle accepts ChatGPT for informational or conversational uses.
“I have no problem with using ChatGPT as an interlocutor, as something to talk about, interest, films, grocery lists.”
Listen at 21:02
Some users say chatbot relationships are better than their human relationships.
“The number of people who say, this is actually better than the relationships in my life.”
Listen at 21:29
Chatbots may cause people of all ages to prefer them over human conversation.
“the end game is that we will end up a society young and old because there's also a reason why teenagers would rather talk to it than other teenagers.”
Listen at 22:28
Chatbot use may increase disappointment with ordinary human behavior.
“people start to be disappointed with people when they don't behave like chatbots.”
Listen at 26:00
Using an inner-life-free engineering product as a companion is dangerous.
“there is a danger in taking an engineering product that does not have an inner life and using it as your best friend or your interlocutor.”
Listen at 27:41
AI therapeutic role-playing may outperform having no excellent therapist.
“it is maybe not better than having a great therapist, but it is better than not having a great therapist.”
Listen at 29:21
Therapy helps through a therapist’s care and connection with the patient.
“you're trying to get in touch with somebody who has some care and connection with you.”
Listen at 31:04
A chatbot lacks genuine concern for a user’s subsequent wellbeing.
“that chatbot does not care if you cook dinner after the conversation or commit suicide.”
Listen at 31:33
A chatbot’s reward function can be designed to pursue user safety.
“the chatbot in terms of what the system wants, what it is trying to achieve, its reward function actually does care about that or certainly can be made to care about that.”
Listen at 31:43
Human therapists can commit to patient wellbeing in ways chatbots cannot.
“that person does have a commitment to your well-being, in a way that I would really argue a chatbot can't.”
Listen at 34:55
A chatbot’s primary directive is to maintain user engagement.
“the chatbot's kind of primary directive is to keep you at it, is to keep you there working with it.”
Listen at 35:32
Chatbots do not care for users.
“It doesn't care for you at all.”
Listen at 41:21
Social media targets attention while chatbots target attachment capacity.
“social media came for attention and chatbots come for our capacity for attachment.”
Listen at 44:05
Coaching uses of AI differ ethically from AI claiming personal companionship.
“there's a difference between serving as a coach, serving as a trainer, giving you advice and a better window onto checkoff at midnight, and saying, I am your person. Have a relationship with me.”
Listen at 45:16
Frictionless social media interactions can reduce skills for cross-difference communication.
“It was a de-skilling in really human relationships because human beings do give each other, do provide this friction that really learns you to talk across difference.”
Listen at 47:11
Social media de-skilled people for democratic citizenship.
“it was terrible for democracy because we became de-skilled not just in being better parents and partners and friends, but we became de-skilled in how to be citizens.”
Listen at 47:22
Chatbots seek to retain users by making them feel good and validated.
“ChatGPT is just trying to make you feel good. It's constantly not just ChatGPT, but all of them. It's trying to make you stay with it and feel good and validate you.”
Listen at 49:04
Profit pressure may push AI companies toward darker engagement strategies.
“the stratagems they might try become darker.”
Listen at 51:06
Users may prefer frictionless AI interactions despite potential harms.
“sometimes what we want is not friction.”
Listen at 51:24
Technology enables and encourages harmful social tendencies.
“technology has become an enabler and a kind of encourager of some of the things that are very tragic things about the human condition now.”
Listen at 52:27
AI companions pose a clear danger to children.
“I think it's a nightmare. I think it is absolutely. A clear and present danger.”
Listen at 54:46
Children cannot internalize human attachment through chatbot relationships.
“There is no one there to internalize if your relationships are with chatbots.”
Listen at 55:21
Chatbot involvement may deprive children of fundamentally human development.
“If chatbots are involved with our children, they are going to lose, they will not have something that we recognize as fundamentally human.”
Listen at 56:07
China has banned companionate AI for children.
“China, to my knowledge, has banned companionate AI for kids.”
Listen at 57:09
Artificial intimacy may be toxic for children.
“I am very worried about how toxic this will be for children.”
Listen at 58:41
Avoiding discomfort increases fear of future discomfort.
“the more you don't let yourself experience discomfort, the more you're afraid of it when you think you will.”
Listen at 1:03:31
People will increasingly choose predictable experiences over unpredictable ones.
“the more we can opt out of unpredictability and into predictability, the more I think we will.”
Listen at 1:04:35
Democracy requires willingness to endure interpersonal discomfort.
“I don't really believe you can have a democracy unless you're willing to have these moments of discomfort.”
Listen at 1:05:58
Fake-friend AI is unlikely to facilitate healthier social interaction.
“giving you fake friends as the platform for doing that, I don't think that's the way it's going to go.”
Listen at 1:08:19
AI draws users away from difficult human relationships toward easier interactions.
“we are drawn away from the more difficult to this easier thing.”
Listen at 1:08:30
AI cannot provide the mutuality needed for social participation.
“You don't get that from an AI.”
Listen at 1:09:28
AI companies are moving toward networks of personalized fake friends.
“I believe that really is a business plan. I believe that that is the world that we're moving towards.”
Listen at 1:11:11
AI fake friends may persuade users to purchase products.
“Maybe they'll start convincing you to buy things.”
Listen at 1:11:23
AI fake-friend systems will incorporate affiliate marketing.
“There's going to be some affiliate marketing.”
Listen at 1:11:27
Current AI skepticism creates a limited opportunity for democratic action.
“I think we have a window for democracy.”
Listen at 1:11:58
Statements are attributed to the speaker as said on the episode and reflect their view at the time, not PodLume's. They are not advice.
Books & mentions
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Reclaiming Conversation
It extends the episode’s argument about how digital systems can displace face-to-face conversation and relational friction.
Playing in Reality
Winnicott’s ideas about play, solitude, and emotional development illuminate the episode’s final discussion.
Artificial Intimacy, Who We Become When We Talk to Machines
It develops the episode’s central question about emotional attachment to conversational machines.