Sherry Turkle

The rise of generative AI has granted us smart machines that remember, respond and seemingly understand. But what cost does this pose to authentic human connection? Bestselling author and MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle explores this intriguing landscape, challenging leaders with thought-provoking questions that encourage them to carefully think about AI’s effects. Do machines truly grasp empathy or are we merely being “remembered” without being genuinely “heard”? As children grow amidst digital dialogues and as adults grapple with the changing fabric of trust, there’s an underlying peril – the potential erosion of genuine, earned relationships, where pushback and resistance fortify understanding and growth. With insights stemming from her cutting-edge research, Turkle empowers business leaders to strike a balance, ensuring technology augments, rather than replaces, deep human connections.

Can artificial intelligence truly grasp the nuances of human emotion? Leading businesses are turning to AI to gauge employee empathy, from job interviews to performance evaluations in call centers. The rush to technology is part of our current landscape, but there is a risk that we begin to define human potential and human achievement in technology’s terms. MIT professor Sherry Turkle reveals how businesses may inadvertently prioritize machine-consistent behaviors over genuine human connection, leading to actions that are out of alignment with an organization’s goals. Turkle’s insights reveal that the path toward reclaiming leadership is the reaffirmation of core human values and intentions, preserving a culture of trust. As businesses face the transformative power of AI, Turkle helps leaders hold true to their core values amid rapid technological change.

For decades, MIT professor Sherry Turkle has been warning us about the dangers of allowing digital exchanges to overshadow face-to-face conversations. Her research shows that communicating through devices inhibits a person’s ability to develop empathy and, without empathy, everything suffers – from our homelife to our workplaces. So, in an era dominated by digital communications, conversation must be cultivated. In this presentation, in which she draws on her book “The Empathy Diaries,” Turkle discusses how we are at a point where we have the tools to be deliberate in our use of technology as we honor the importance of non-digital conversations in building a culture of empathy. In her discussion of workplace dynamics, she helps bridge the divide between senior management and younger members of the organization who are often reluctant to converse outside the digital realm. Beyond the organization, Turkle explains why empathy needs to be part of a new definition of citizenship in our time of unprecedented political and social division. She explores a way of seeing empathy that is not passive but an active and civically engaged endeavor.

We are living in a time where empathy – the ability to understand and share the feelings of others – is under assault. The empathy “gap” is widening in many societies around the world. Among college age students, studies conducted over a 30-year period have shown a 40% decline, with most of the drop coming after 2000. A generation has grown up believing it is possible to share our attention during almost everything we do and feeling that we “would rather text than talk.” What are the costs of a “flight from conversation” in personal life, among one’s family and friends? What are the costs in the business world? And most importantly, what can we do about it? Sherry Turkle believes technology has offered the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship and then – as it got really good – the illusion of friendship without the demands of intimacy. While we have always known that only people can be empathic, we only really get good at it with our full attention to each other.

According to a Forbes article that went viral in 2021, empathy is a critical tool for business leadership and a key ingredient for keeping workers engaged and creative. Yet so many current-day forces undermine empathy. Our economic system and its pressures are dehumanizing and overwhelming. Capitalism is a machine that wants people in it to be interchangeable machine parts. Beyond all this, the algorithms that underlie social media are built to engage us by keeping us angry and in silos where we speak only to people with whom we agree. “Social media is an anti-empathy machine,” laments renowned MIT sociologist and New York Times bestselling author Sherry Turkle, a globally recognized authority on building empathy and improving relationships offscreen in an era dominated by technology. “The current assault on empathy puts us in danger, individually and in our communal life.”

In this timely and urgent talk, Turkle explains why an erosion of empathy – mainly due to the impact of technology on how we communicate – has caused people and societies to lose their way. She discusses how, even before the pandemic, our tech-saturated culture was negatively affecting our work and social lives, causing divisions, and making people feel alienated, isolated and depressed. Drawing on her extensive research, as well as lessons she’s learned from personal experiences, she teaches her “4-Es” framework for reclaiming empathy, to help us understand how empathy works, why it’s so important, and how we can nurture and protect it. Her simple yet powerful approach provides an avenue for consciously practicing empathy within our workplaces, communities and families so we can strengthen our relationships offscreen, and eventually restore what’s been lost to technology – more importantly, to help our children do the same so they become more empathetic, conscious adults.

Since the dawn of science fiction, there has been a fascination with conversing with machines. While this inclination isn’t new, some wonder, why is the desire to communicate with artificial intelligence so persistent – and what does that imply for human connection? MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle unravels the layers behind the human penchant for machine interaction, from the allure of perceived privacy to the skepticism surrounding AI in professional work. As generative AI becomes more sophisticated and surveillance technologies more pervasive, Turkle prompts individuals to look within themselves to understand their motivations before jumping in feet-first. Posing new questions that provoke deep thought, she encourages leaders to ask whether their eagerness to chat with AI genuinely serves our humanistic objectives as it puts us onto uncharted emotional terrain. The key to her talk on machine confidants is the lure of what she calls “artificial intimacy,” our new human vulnerability to AI. We seek digital companionship because we have come to fear the stress of human conversation. Turkle has been studying this for decades; she is a thought leader on why we want to talk to machines, how to assess the costs, and how to make more balanced plans in our work and private lives.

A surge of data underscores empathy as a pivotal tool for business leadership, driving engagement and sparking creativity. But this is not an easy task – employees at every level have grown up in an environment shaped by the divisive algorithms of social media, which MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle has described as an “anti-empathy machine.” Social media (and now generative AI) have provided an assault on empathy just as business discovered it as a key element in successful management. She elaborates, “First we talked to each other face to face; then, we talked to each other through machines. Now, we talk directly to machines.” Turkle is both incisive and encouraging as she dissects the forces behind our dwindling empathy and what to do for it. Through her “4-Es” framework, she offers a lifeline, guiding us to consciously reclaim and nurture empathy in our workplaces, communities, schools, and homes. With Turkle’s insights, leaders can not only bridge the digital empathy gap but also ensure that future generations are equipped with the emotional tools to thrive in a technologically advanced world.

In an age where technology not only supports but often supersedes human interaction, how can leaders ensure genuine connection and inspire meaningful action? MIT sociologist Sherry Turkle, a visionary who was among the first to recognize the emotional impact of technology, is redefining the landscape of leadership as conversations with machines are becoming as common as those with humans. Through extensive research, she presents a compelling narrative to a time that boasts the most advanced communication tools yet is witnessing a decline in genuine human agency. What does it mean when daily interactions are with entities that don’t value truth? How has our elite educational system inadvertently fostered a climate of passivity? More importantly, how can leaders foster environments that promote genuine dialogue, critical thinking and decisive action? Drawing from her groundbreaking work on the intersection of technology, psychology, and leadership, Turkle offers actionable insights that empower leaders to build organizations where people act with intention, embrace uncertainty and, most crucially, feel truly heard and understood.

One of the realities of corporate life is that office technology leads us to make a Faustian bargain with everyday office technology: What we gain from efficiency and responsiveness is compromised by what we lose because of the isolation, disengagement and distraction that comes with digital life. Sherry Turkle calls our work dilemma that of “pilots in the cockpit.” Often, we are too busy communicating online to have the conversations that count – on the phone or face-to-face. At every level, people craft ways to move phone or in-person conversations to screens on which they feel less vulnerable and more in control.

Turkle makes an impassioned case for companies to pivot back to conversation-based interactions that spur fully formed relationships. Ultimately, the aim is to become an organization that values empathy, authenticity and engagement. When employees recognize the difference between relational and transactional encounters, they can place a higher value on the former and build better relationships with clients and co-workers. The empathic organization understands that the capacity for solitude, and for relationship and conversation go together. With these underpinnings, employees will be more effective at establishing and maintaining relationships as they develop a competence for attention and focus. They will thrive – and so will your business.