Why Chatbots Can't Replace Empathy

From Google to Amazon to Apple, software giants are integrating voice commands, search and a whole lot of data to makes their digital voices not just smarter, but more human. The promise of voice-activated AI is exciting, but in entirely digitizing our interactions we run the risk of losing real conversation. MIT's Sherry Turkle tackles the issue in her book, "Reclaiming Conversation." By retreating to our devices, she argues, we forget what it means to be human. And the hiring of poets and novelists to craft "characters" for these emerging AIs points to the fact that consumers clearly value the human element.