Crutch or Catalyst? How AI is Changing the Ways We Relate

{ "name": "Crutch or Catalyst? How AI is Changing the Ways We Relate", "description": "As AI becomes increasingly embedded in our lives, it has taken on roles as a therapist, a friend, even a lover. When we allow AI systems into our communities and our closest circles, what happens to our agency, our inner lives, and our ability to form relationships with other people? Join MIT professor and renowned social scientist Sherry Turkle, podcaster and tech & culture critic Bridget Todd, and Sean Dorrance Kelly, Dean of Arts and Humanities at Harvard University, for a conversation about what we gain and lose when we delegate acts of attention and companionship to systems designed to be available and responsive in our times of need.What does the evidence show about human-AI relationships? What about human-AI emotional reliance? Where do we draw the line? Is there even a line to be drawn? Moderated by BKC Fellow and Human-AI Relationship Coach Amelia Miller, Kelly, Todd and Turkle will bring their personal experiences, interdisciplinary approaches, and relevant research to bear on an emerging field with little consensus \u2014 and very high stakes. This conversation will consider how engagement with AI is reshaping what we expect from friendship, family, and community, and what responsibilities belong to technology companies, public institutions, and each of us as users of technology and creatures of belonging. SpeakersSean KellyDean of Arts and Humanities, Harvard UniversitySean Dorrance Kelly is Dean of Arts and Humanities and Teresa G. and Ferdinand F. Martignetti Professor of Philosophy at Harvard University, and the leader of the Public Culture Project. Before joining the Harvard faculty in 2006, Dean Kelly taught philosophy at Stanford and Princeton. Dean Kelly is the author of a New York Times bestseller, All Things Shining: Reading the Western Classics to Find Meaning in a Secular Age.Bridget ToddMacArthur Foundation Tech in the Public Interest FellowBridget Todd is a MacArthur Foundation Tech in the Public Interest Fellow, an affiliate of Harvard University\u2019s Berkman Klein Center, creator of iHeart Media's hit podcast There Are No Girls On The Internet, and host of Mozilla Foundation\u2019s multi-award-winning podcast exploring ethics in AI IRL: Online Life is Real Life. She recently co-authored Love at First Prompt: AI and the Future of Intimacy, an audiobook produced by Simon & Schuster.Sherry TurkleAbby Rockefeller Mauz\u00e9 Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MITSherry Turkle is the Abby Rockefeller Mauz\u00e9 Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT and the founding director of the MIT Initiative on Technology and Self. She is the author of Alone Together, Reclaiming Conversation, and The Empathy Diaries. In September 2026, Turkle published Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines, which traces the impact of AI-mediated communication through the lifecycle\u2014from children\u2019s earliest attachments to end of life decisions.ModeratorAmelia Miller is a BKC fellow, as well as a researcher, designer, and writer focused on how technology shapes human connection. Her work can be seen in The New York Times (\"We\u2019re All In a Throuple with AI\"), The New Yorker, Bloomberg, NPR or the BKC\u2019s 3 Question series.", "startDate": "2026-11-19", "endDate": "2026-11-19", "startTime": "17:00", "endTime": "18:30", "location": "1557 Massachusetts Ave., , Lewis Hall, 5th floor, Cambridge, MA, 02138, US", "label": "Add to Calendar", "options": [ "Apple", "Google", "iCal", "Microsoft365", "MicrosoftTeams", "Yahoo" ], "timeZone": "US/Eastern", "trigger": "click", "inline": true, "listStyle": "modal", "iCalFileName": "Event 304980" }