Alone Together: Why We Expect More from Technology and Less From Each Other

A behaviorist perspective in the context of the robotic movement puts more emphasis on the functionality of a robot over its internal state. This means that if a robot can easily replace a human worker and do its task more efficiently, then whether or not it has an inner life or understands what it’s doing is irrelevant. Most of the first half of the book is dedicated to exploring these two different perspectives, with Turkle representing a more Romantic viewpoint, placing her emphasis on robots’ empathetic shortcomings and what these robots might do to erode what we think of now as a social connection or even love. Turkle sums up her view when she asks, “Why would we want to be in conversation with machines that cannot understand or care for us?” (282).

On the other hand, many of the children who are growing up with sociable robots as interactive toys in the form of the Furby or the Tamagotchi tend to focus on the benefits of robots over humans, the improvements they could bring to their lives. Turkle is engaged with this debate additionally with many roboticists. When she approaches people about a robotics conference titled “Caring Machines: Artificial Intelligence in Eldercare,” she says, “they saw caring as a behavior, not a feeling” (106).