A professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Sherry Turkle is constantly questioning the role that technology plays in our lives. From personal computers and medical technology to children's toys that now include sophisticated artificial intelligence, the pace of technological progress has sped rapidly within the last several decades. But has often been the case in the past, our emotional and ethical progress lags substantially behind the advance of technology, and this is what principally concerns Turkle. As we devote fewer hours of the day to face-to-face human interactions, sometimes substituting an online social experience, are we adversely affecting our deep evolutionary need to be social -- to be an integral part of a real human community? Creators of artificial intelligence measure its effectiveness against how well human qualities like empathy, listening, affirmation, and love can be imitated.

We worry so much about whether we can get people to talk to robots, you know, can you get a child to talk to this Hello Barbie? Can you get an elderly person to talk to a sociable robot? These robots don't know how to listen and understand what you're saying. They know how to respond. They're programmed to make something of what you say and respond but they don't know what it means if you say my sister makes me feel depressed because she's more beautiful than I am and I feel that my mother loves her more.