September 30, 2026 – The Business Catcher Nir Zavaro and Artificial Intimacy Dr. Sherry Turkle

00:00 Intro 1: On the air, broadcasting from AM and FM stations around the country. Welcome to the Small Business Administration Award-winning School for Startups Radio, while we talk all things small business and entrepreneurship. Now, here is your host, the guy who believes anyone can be a successful entrepreneur, because entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk or passion, Jim Beach.

00:26 Jim Beach: Hello, everyone, welcome to another exciting edition of School for Startups Radio. Thank you so much for being with us. We greatly appreciate it. And as always, we appreciate you telling your friends, looking for our social media, all of that kind of stuff, looking at our index so that you can find the niches that you particularly want to study. We realize that every show, every guest is not designed for you. A lot of them are for other people. But the index and our table of contents and all of that are designed so that you can find all of the great interviews. Got 2 of them today. First up, well, let me tell you this. Both of these interviews have been edited, something we almost never do, but we had to do it today. Our 1st guest plays the Quick 10, but we didn’t have time to air it. So I have taken it out. We will air it at another time.

01:26 Jim Beach: And secondly, one of our guests, the conversation turns into my kids, and so I took that part out, not because I didn’t want you to hear it because again, we were out of time. And so that’s what I’ve had to do. First up today, we have Nir Zavaro. He is the Business Catcher, and you’ll understand what I mean by that. It was amazing interview. And then after that, Sherry Turkle. Equally amazing interview. We talk about AI and artificial intelligence, and the more I learn, the more scared I get. It is just so scary. But Sherry and I have a great conversation, very down to earth, and so I’m excited to share it with you. We are going to go ahead and get started right now. Here we go. I’m very excited to introduce a great guest. Please welcome Nir Zavaro to the show. He is a business storyteller, a keynote speaker, and author of F*ck the Slides: Creating a Winning Pitch Using Storytelling Techniques. That is his third book.

02:29 Jim Beach: He is the founder of an organization called the Business Catcher. It is a methodology designed to help Businesses Connect their brand, messaging, marketing sales, and customer journey into one unified system. Prior to that, he built a marketing agency called Streetwise, which I think was sold. And now he is working with people like us, helping entrepreneurs learn to become better at telling their story and using better branding. He has worked with some of the top companies in the world companies like Microsoft and Unilever. Very impressive. Nir, welcome to the show. How are you doing?

03:04 Nir Zavaro: Very good. Thank you very much for having me.

03:06 Jim Beach: It is my pleasure. I’m sorry to interfere with your holiday. I know you’re on vacation right now. I hope you have a great one.

03:16 Nir Zavaro: No, Jim, I think now you would be part of my vacation.

03:21 Jim Beach: That’s right. Yes. So tell me about Israel right now. How are things going at a macro level? We have the war going on. Uh, certainly trying times. I think you have an election coming up. What are your thoughts on just the macro level of what’s happening in the Middle East right now?

03:42 Nir Zavaro: Yeah, but I think we would need a few days to discuss this. I think it’s just a complicated matter, like anything and everything when it involves a lot of people, opinions and um, a lot of passion and ego, you know? Everybody tells them their own story or their own version. And um, what I can share with you is we always need to stay hopeful, that we will find a way to connect, to have peace to get along.

04:12 Jim Beach: Oh, that’s a great attitude. I like that. I like that. Does it affect business? Is it hurting business on a daily basis?

04:21 Nir Zavaro: Right now, it is not necessarily affecting on a daily basis. I think we went through a few cycles, definitely post-October 7th, but even March, [unclear] war. It affected everything. It’s very hard to have business when you’re running into and back from shelter and missiles are hitting. A missile hit across our street. So you can imagine that a few buildings disappeared. You don’t go back to normal and having normal meetings. And um, it also impacts uh, global. Traveling is harder. You know?

04:54 Jim Beach: Yes. You just got to Thailand, that must have taken, uh, quite a few inspections and, uh, more effort than.

05:03 Nir Zavaro: Tell you what, we had, we flew to Abu Dhabi, which again, is talking about the Middle East. It’s amazing that we are able to fly to these countries and find a way to get along and do business and other stuff, but the plane was stuck on the tarmac for over two hours because the Jordanian airspace was closed. And it has nothing to do with us. Iran firing at them, you know?

05:30 Jim Beach: Right. All right, well let’s do, as you said, pray that we all find a way to work together. Tell us about the business catcher.

05:39 Nir Zavaro: Yeah, I think it was an understanding. At a certain point during my agency life. That most founders and old businesses do things very similarly, and it’s not necessarily the best way to run a business. And a lot of times, founders would say, um, let’s think outside of the box. You know, they’ll argue that is great, but can you explain what the box is? And in that, since I referred to their brand. You know, when I do marketing for a big organization, we need to know who they are, how they uh, appear, how they um, act. Everything they have in order for us to play dress up, right? Pick up that megaphone that is their brand and streaming to the world. This is what we do. This is why you should love us. This is why you should come to us. What I learned is most brands do not have a real brand. They have a visual identity and a few other things to help them along the way.

06:44 Nir Zavaro: But if you and I watch a movie, for example, we have a character that we like. If we don’t connect with it, if it doesn’t resonate, we opt out. But we do that in business every day where we don’t have a brand character. So using that methodology of storytelling how to create brand characters, I teach them how to make sure that the brand is consistent in everything they do and it has 5 pillars.

07:13 Jim Beach: Okay. Can you tell me what those are?

07:16 Nir Zavaro: Happy to. So the brand character basically has the brand identity, the the messaging, the customer journey, the marketing, and the sales. So once we have that understanding, it means that every interaction that the brand has internally and externally, it will stay consistent. I can give you a great example. There’s a client of work within Israel. They’re a very big player in their market. And last year they were number three. We implemented a different customer journey, making sure that in every intersection. From the moment the client leaves their lead or calls the office until they finish the deal, which could take 6 months, 8 months. We will make sure that in every step, We ensure that they get the feelings we wanted. We always sound the same regardless of who you had to deal with internally with the company. That became about 34 steps of a customer journey. And we went from number 3 to number one in a few months.

08:18 Jim Beach: What do you mean, 34 steps? There were 30, what do you mean by that?

08:22 Nir Zavaro: They have 34 they have 34 interactions. So for example, someone leaves the lead. 1st interaction, they saw an ad, they left their lead. Now, we want to send them a thank you email. Most companies will say, oh, thank you for reaching out with being in touch soon. Doesn’t mean anything, doesn’t sound very unique. There’s no differentiator, but more than that, you just created uncertainty for a client. Because subconsciously they don’t know what does it mean? We be in touch soon.

08:55 Jim Beach: That’s right, yes.

08:56 Nir Zavaro: So, regardless of if it’s a long sales cycle, sometimes I work with companies who do a 12 month cycle. Sometimes they’ll have an instant season, right? B2C and they sell online. In every interaction, You want to make sure that it stays consistent. So what are the emotions we want to convey? Are we aligned with the key messages? Do we behave and sound the same? I can’t have someone from customer support, all of a sudden, be very negative, if we are not negative as a brand. Think of it as a character that needs to stay consistent in a book or a movie or show.

09:37 Jim Beach: All right, I like that analogy. That makes sense. Yeah. And when the business is normally break these five, Do they, are they good at number one and 2 and then drop it at number three, the journey or when your clients come to you? What part of this are they breaking the most?

09:57 Nir Zavaro: Conversation I had yesterday before I went, before we boarded the plane. Good friend of mine, they’re doing about $6000000 in revenue. Great business. And he calls, he thinks they need to rebrand. When he says rebrand is trying to figure out the 50, 60, $80,000 for a project, to have a nicer logo. And maybe revamp the website. But when I’ll ask them, What do you want to do? What do you consider success next year? If you’re doing 5 or 6? Is it 8? Is it 10? That’s great. Do you know how many clients you have and what’s the churn? How many clients do not continue in this process that you have? How many clients reach out, potential leads that do not book? Why did they do not, didn’t pay? Do we know what the customer journey is? And I said, listen, just go pick up all these things. And by the time I land in Thailand, send me an email. We’ll fix this.

11:00 Nir Zavaro: You’ll have more than $50,000 to have a nicer logo, okay? So it is something that we need to live by. You know, I wrote 2 novels about the nightlife of Tel Aviv. In the stories and everything. And you need to make sure that there is a consistency in that character. And every time I went to write the 2nd novel and I’m working on the 3rd novel, I need to make sure that that character is still that character. Okay, Darth Vader cannot suddenly become a nice guy that has a puppy. It doesn’t work. Why do we do this in our businesses? Ask any founder from now on on your shows, ask them. What are the 10 words that your brand loves to use, what are the 10 words your brand hates? Can stand. What do we avoid? Don’t tell me that you’re professional because you’ve never met a brand that says, hi, you’re an unprofessional brand. It doesn’t work like that. What are your ways of being?

12:04 Nir Zavaro: How do you behave? What do you bring to the table? When Streetwise started to grow as an agency, I never wanted to scale over a certain size. It wasn’t who I am. I didn’t want to run a big business. And the 1st core value we had is be a little bit of an entrepreneur. That meant that every employee was allowed to knock on my door and say, hey, I have a great idea. Sometimes I lost money by the way. That was a great idea. Didn’t work out. But in other occasions, Some of my employees, I said, listen, I think it’s an epic idea. The problem is it’s not something for us as an agency, but what if you take a leave or what if you quit and you go do it? And I ended up having very good friends who used to be my employees who have amazing businesses. I had to let them go because that was a core value. You understand what I’m saying?

13:08 Jim Beach: Yes. Do you talk about that when you hire people? Do you mention this core value during the onboarding process?

13:14 Nir Zavaro: Yes, if you ask almost every person that was on board, especially where I come from, a lot of tech companies. You get the onboarding kit. So you get a nice bottle of water, a case for something, a camera, a new keyboard, and stuff like that, a backpack. But no one says, hey, over the last 3 over the next 3 months, this is how your core values and brand on boarding is going to look like. Mind you, these are big companies that have time, the resources to do everything. 3 months after. That employees says, eh, I don’t feel good. Something doesn’t sit well and out. The cost. Of doing that hiring until we find someone. And if they do not assimilate and they quit. And doing this process again, is so expensive, it was easier to hire what I teach in this concept, a brand guardian. Someone who is there to ensure that we stay consistent all through the year.

14:17 Nir Zavaro: The 4th book, the business catcher, I explain how to do it, how to have these days every 6 weeks and how to improve, what needs to happen, and so on.

14:29 Jim Beach: Is this for B2B or B2C?

14:32 Nir Zavaro: If you have more than 2 people. For example, let’s say you and I decide to open an international podcasting company now. And I travel the world and I talk to a lot of companies and I know a lot of people and you have a lot of expertise in what you do in your podcasts and the shows. And you will explain to me how the shows work and I was like, listen, whatever you say. I’m with you, because you know everything. And the next time we’re going to talk about doing something in Israel and you’re going to say, I trust you need it. You know everything. So that means even when we did not argue. We did not necessarily do what is best for the brand. Two people or more, there has to be a brand sitting in with you in the room.

15:28 Jim Beach: Can you tell us about your new book? F*ck the Slides: Creating a Winning Pitch Using Storytelling Techniques. All right, a lot of presenters love their slides. That is their safety blanket. They get up there and read right off of them. So how are we going to F the slides?

15:46 Nir Zavaro: So I think, 1st of all, just to clarify, the book came out, November 23, and because of the war and everything that happened, I started to do a lot of talks and keynotes around the world, but we’re now basically not just launching, but was starting to see the impact. And the book came out because I thought I wanted to help a lot, a lot of people that I won’t necessarily reach or cannot work with me or can’t afford it, and it’s, I think these are the best emails I get from people I’ve never met, I probably never see, who bought the book and used it and it helped them. Not just use slides differently, but tell a better story and achieve their goals, with one person solving malaria and another lady helping women in distress with an app that doesn’t use Wi-Fi. So I think the idea is that if we put aside the slides for a 2nd.

16:48 Nir Zavaro: When we go into a room and we lose that crutch, we don’t know what we need to say. And that means we start to improvise. And it’s very strange to go into a boardroom, to meet investors or a big sale. And improvise. And I teach people to go from, ‘Yeah, I think it went well,’ to, ‘No, no, it went exactly as planned.’

17:14 Jim Beach: Okay, do they use a different type of slide or do they not use slides at all in this method?

17:18 Nir Zavaro: That’s a great question. I think it is a very hot, very hot after we taught people so many years to use slides first. People would say, I have a meeting, let’s open PowerPoint and do problem solution and so on. I teach people how to start from writing. What if we are concise, interesting, compelling, and the best examples I can give is if you and I go to the movies and we sit there before the movie starts and we see the movie trailers and I love going to the movies and I love seeing the movie trailers. In 3 minutes or less, they will take us from. Never heard about this movie to, wow, I wanna see it. When is it coming out? I would love to go watch it, right? And it’s an art form.

18:11 Nir Zavaro: So the book and my methodology, I teach people how to write a short compelling pitch about 500 words in English, so it’s 3 to 4 minutes, but more than that, how to edit, how to measure. And how to do the most important thing, understand that we do not communicate through data. We 1st and foremost communicate through emotion. And then the experiences we had. And then we are able to read in between the lines, something AI is still incapable of doing. And we only lastly use data to convince us that what we feel is actually what is happening.

18:49 Jim Beach: So if I’m trying to sell Software or hardware, anything. Uh, You know, a business product. What’s the cool storyline behind me trying to sell you some hardware? That’s not a very interesting story. I don’t want to see that movie.

19:04 Nir Zavaro: Oh, the question is different. If you need the hardware. I do not sell to people who do not need to be sold, and the reason is because I believe there is no such thing as a red ocean. We live in a blue ocean. There’s enough clients in almost every industry today, and I work with clients and their clients are governments and armies. So you can imagine, there’s only a certain amount of countries they can sell to. And yet we see that the market is big enough to achieve the business goals that we have. When I started selling stuff, I sold snowboards in a country that has 10 months of sun. So you can imagine if I’m able to sell that when everybody’s at the beach, it’s not a bad business if you can do it well. And we were at some point doing a revenue that was bigger, higher, than almost all the surfing shops combined.

20:05 Nir Zavaro: But when someone came in, I need to understand who’s standing in front of me. What are they looking to achieve? And what does success look for them? Now, if someone comes into the hardware store and they need to drill something, or they need to paint something, there’s a different thing. But then I can say, hey, here’s a paintbrush. Well, I can tell you about that pain brush. Same example falls when we talk or qualifies when we talk about cars, you know this. Any car will take you from point A to point B. There’s a difference how you get there in a Ferrari.

20:45 Jim Beach: What was the pitch or the story that you used for the snowboards near?

20:48 Nir Zavaro: I think snowboard is the. It’s the easiest. When someone comes in, especially in Israel, they have a chance to spend a lot of money. When I say a lot of money, by the way. It means the biggest purchase they will make as a house, then a car, and then in terms of value in Israel. It’s something like buying sports equipment. It’s a few $1000 A big purchase. We needed to convince people. That if they only fly for 6 days. For one week vacation. Spending another $100 or $200 is nothing compared to $1,500 or $2,000 that they would spend. In order to have that success feeling that you have exactly the right gear. When you and I, look at that mountain, the sun is coming up and, you know, there’s just the right amount of wind and you can see the snow. And it’s going to be the best day.

21:48 Nir Zavaro: And you know that winters, especially when you go to a winter season or you go for a week, your year would split, 6 months, you look forward to flying to your snowboard vacation, in 6 months, you will talk about how it was. And I can help you make that feeling the best you have this year. But only if you want.

22:10 Jim Beach: Did you have a good year for snow in Europe? Was the skiing good this year in America, it was a bad year just about everywhere.

22:21 Nir Zavaro: Yeah. Yeah, I think Europe had a bad year. Mountain, that isn’t big is closed. So hopefully next year I’ll get to to do a good vacation, hopefully. Yes. I don’t know. I don’t know if you know this, but Lebanon has great snow, and we always had this high hopes that if everything goes well, one day we won’t have to fly to France. We can just go cross the border and go to Lebanon snowball.

22:50 Jim Beach: I did not know that. That’s interesting. That would be… Quite a vacation.

22:54 Nir Zavaro: Peace is a very big word, but it consists of a lot of small dreams, and everybody has their story. And if we get enough people with enough good stories, you have more good than bad.

23:08 Jim Beach: Yes. All right, well, back to the book just a second. We only have a couple minutes left. When you are, do you still use slides in this method or just very, very minimal slides?

23:21 Nir Zavaro: Just picture slides. Yes, minimal, minimal slide is a great example. Slides have what type of slides you need for a different situation. When you present in a meeting. You are the presentation, then your slides have either an option of playing scenery. I’m going to Thailand. Here’s a picture of Thailand, or supporting role. I’m trying to explain something a bit complicated and I need to show you the robot that we’re using or another key number I want you to remember and I want to emphasize. Then if you need to send slides after the meeting. Or if during the meeting we do an FAQ, these are different types of slides. I explain them all in the book, but technically I teach people to have a well written pitch that they know by heart, which means that if they go into the meeting. And for example, an investor would say, ah, listen, don’t don’t open the computer. Just let’s talk.

24:21 Nir Zavaro: They know exactly what they need to say and how it needs to sound.

24:26 Jim Beach: And we never really discussed this. Maybe we should have talked about this at the beginning. What should the story tell? Should the story be how I got here today or the dream I have for tomorrow? What should the story focus on, the thesis?

24:42 Nir Zavaro: Amazing. I would split the story as a basic concept for three. We can use 3 parts. The 1st part is the hook. You have 70 words, about 30 seconds to grab them into your story. It could be how you got here. It could be why the market is interesting. It could be why the technology changed. You decide what is the opening scene. But in 70 words, then it becomes easier also for you to measure. You need to take them from, okay, try and sell me to, wait, wait, this is interesting. The 2nd part, what we call the, let’s say, the majority of your pitch is to prove that point. Everything I told you and how I got here is because the market change, because this is the technology, because I have the right people next to me to achieve those goals and we already have traction in this market, and your $5000000 will help us get there quicker, better, achieve greater things.

25:46 Nir Zavaro: The last part, about 10 to 15% should be, The summary. Some sort of a recap to enable people to understand what’s the clear ask. And in those 500 words, I suggest to have the repetition 3 times of the key, one thing you want me to take away from all of them. That we are old storytellers, great. Repeat that 3 times. That we need to join you because you’re going to change the AI marketplace. Great. Repeat that. And then in the book, I teach frame by frame, section by section, how to look at it.

26:23 Jim Beach: And what about time? Should we use all of the time they give us? If they give us 30 minutes? Should we try for 30 minutes or try for 20 with questions?

26:35 Nir Zavaro: We need to understand that people all over the world have the same issue. We do not like uncertainty, but we face it every time, every place we go with everything. If we get 30 minutes, we go into the meeting. I will explain what is about to happen if it’s okay with you and ask you a few questions. I will then tell you about my book or my pitch or my company for about 3 or 4 minutes, and then I’ll be happy to take questions. Is that okay with you? Okay? No one will say no.

27:11 Jim Beach: I like it.

27:13 Nir Zavaro: Then you have a structure, Jim, which is very important. And if you told me what’s going to happen and the brain is a very lazy. Organ, it doesn’t want to work hard, and you just told me, I’m good, but I know what’s going to happen. If then you also do the pitch for 3 or 4 minutes. I like you. You want to, and I think this is important. Time constraints. Then I do not say everything. I say exactly what is needed. In the FAQ, we have a chance to have more complex slides, we have a chance to discuss, to get to know each other, a bit of more small talk. By the way, that’s where most founders lose the pitch. They talk five, 10, 15 minutes and then when they go to the FAQ, they become very technical. And that’s also something I teach.

28:08 Jim Beach: What are the levels of the story? They’re absolutely fascinating and great information. I’m sorry to have interrupted your vacation. How do we get in touch with you? Find out more. Get a copy of the book.

28:24 Nir Zavaro: Amazing. NirZavaro.com. You’re more than welcome. And if I may, to help people achieve this quicker and better. We just launched StookApp.com. And it’s finally after years of work. It does what the book teaches, and it helps founders achieve that in a couple of minutes. So practice, write, pitch the story, pitch online and everything. And it’s been such a great thing to see successful for founders who felt lost. A day later they know what they need to do.

28:54 Jim Beach: Yes, fantastic. Thank you so much for being with us, and we’d love to have you back. Have a great vacation.

29:03 Nir Zavaro: Thank you very much.

29:03 Jim Beach: And we’ll be right back. I cannot wait to have this conversation. Please welcome Dr. Sherry Turkle to the show. She is the Abby Rockefeller Mauzé Professor of the Social Studies of Science and Technology at MIT. I don’t know what that word is. Mauzé. Mauzé, thank you. At MIT. So she has a chair, in other words, at MIT. You don’t get any more prestigious than that. She got her PhD at someplace called Harvard, and is author of a new book called Artificial Intimacy: Who We Become When We Talk to Machines. She has written many other books, most prominently The Second Self. All of her books talk about who we are when we are using machines, what we become, and all of the differences. I can’t wait to get into this. Dr. Turkle, welcome to the show. How you doing today?

30:00 Dr. Sherry Turkle: I’m great. I’m delighted to be here.

30:00 Jim Beach: I’ve seen pictures of you. You are just elegant. You look suave. Every picture I’ve seen of you. You just look elegant. I just wanted to say that. Couldn’t be classier.

30:15 Dr. Sherry Turkle: Thank you. Thank you.

30:18 Jim Beach: Especially when you have the scarves up high anyway. Who is Abby Rockefeller Mauzé?

30:22 Dr. Sherry Turkle: Say it again. Abby Rockefeller Mauzé was a member of the Rockefeller family who gave a chair to MIT. Abby Rockefeller Mauzé. Um, was a um, a member of the Rockefeller family who uh, gave a chair to MIT and that chair goes to different people and right now I hold it and it comes with wonderful uh, support for my research. So it’s really very, I’m very grateful to that chair for so much of my work.

30:48 Jim Beach: All right, fantastic. Well, congratulations on the new book, Artificial Intimacy. I think ChatGPT knows more about me than any other entity, including my wife. I have told it personal things about my feelings and it knows all of my bio and knows the books I’ve written and all that stuff. I think it knows everything about me. What do you think?

31:12 Dr. Sherry Turkle: Well, it depends what you mean by ‘knows.’

31:15 Jim Beach: Okay, Bill Clinton. We have Bill Clinton on the show today.

31:20 Dr. Sherry Turkle: All right, let me let me just challenge that. I mean, ChatGPT is not a person, so it never was a child. It doesn’t know what anxieties are about. It doesn’t have a life, so it doesn’t fear illness or death. It doesn’t have relationships. So it doesn’t know anything about the ups and downs and the stresses of relationships. It doesn’t have a child. So it doesn’t know how people feel about their children. It doesn’t know about pain, so it doesn’t know how scary it is to be sick or so it knows in a kind of literary sense, it knows how to say things to you that makes it feel, makes you feel that it understands, but it actually doesn’t know anything about you. And um, in terms of really uh, uh, an ability to really understand or share or empathize with what you’ve experienced in your life.

32:15 Dr. Sherry Turkle: So what your statement says to me is that the meaning of what we mean when we say ‘knows’ has changed, because it’s kind of like saying pretend empathy is empathy enough, pretend knowing is knowing enough. So it kind of gives you the feeling that it knows, but I stand by what I say in artificial intimacy, which is that we’re selling ourselves cheap. Because really it knows nothing.

32:42 Jim Beach: Okay, that was amazing. Pretend empathy is enough, but then we sell ourselves cheap if we do that. But Sherry, there had been days when that pretend empathy, I appreciated it and it made me feel better. Don’t doubt that.

32:56 Dr. Sherry Turkle: And that’s why I wrote the book because we’re really, that’s really why I wrote the book because we’re really at a point. Where because we sort of don’t like the vulnerability of talking to people because other people can make us feel smaller and secure, it’s a lot of work, you have to find them. Um, we’re allowing ourselves to be seduced by chatbots that will give us the feeling that they understand or the feeling that they’re our friends. But there’s really nobody home. I mean, in artificial intimacy. I say, when you turn away from a chatbot, it doesn’t care if you cook dinner or commit suicide. Now, what kind of friend is that? If you had a friend that didn’t care if you cook dinner or committed suicide, you’d, you’d lose that friend real quick. Now, why do we think that it’s so fantastic, if we spend all day talking to a chatbot, that doesn’t care?

33:57 Dr. Sherry Turkle: So I think we’re kind of, uh, we’re kind of giving away the store because we’re, we’re allowing that feeling of connection to really substitute for the real thing. And in the end, we’re going to be left with nothing because there is nothing there. I mean, I have long COVID, as my voice is a little scratchy, and once I had a bout of it. I wasn’t infectious, but I was kind of down, and I had a friend come over with Mexican food. I’d just been talking to ChatGPT about my long COVID, and it said things like, hydrate, stay calm, carry on. Uh, be gentle with yourself. You’ve got this, you’re okay, you know. And then, that was all for nothing as soon as a friend came over with real food and sat and talked to me and, you know, was there for me. So, between ChatGPT saying, hydrate, meditate, and a friend coming over and really being there for you, I mean, there is no contest.

35:05 Dr. Sherry Turkle: The trouble is if we spend too much time with the chatbot. We don’t leave enough time for our friends.

35:11 Jim Beach: Well, I absolutely agree. I’d rather have Mexican with my friend than chat. There’s absolutely no competition there. But I, here’s the use that I find when it comes to relationships and such. Do you know Reddit, of course, Sherry? You know, the website, Reddit.

35:31 Dr. Sherry Turkle: Yeah.

35:31 Jim Beach: Okay, on Reddit, there is a subgroup called Am I the Blank Hole. And I can’t say that word on the radio, so please don’t say that blank word, Sherry. Am I the blank hole and people put situations in there and say, am I the jerk or is the other person the jerk? You know, because sometimes we need to test ourselves and find out if our feelings are true or if we are the jerk, you know? And so I found that useful and put it into GPT and say, were my feelings wrong here or, you know, is this normal? What do you think of that? Asking this? Am I a normal?

36:14 Dr. Sherry Turkle: Well, I think it’s not, I think it’s much more, listen, Reddit is a bunch of people. Right. Some of them, some of them are a little out there, but you know, it’s people. Who, um, have lived lives, have children, have parents, have spouses and partners, uh, who actually been through some of the things that you might be describing. And I mean, they’re in a position to say, yeah, you sound like you’re the jerk. I mean, or, you know, why don’t you rethink that? But ChatGPT hasn’t lived any life. I don’t think it’s an expert on…

36:48 Jim Beach: Sorry to interrupt, Sherry. You said it in your 1st section that it’s programmed to feel, to seem empathetic, you know? It’s not true empathy, but it’s fake empathy, but at least it’s better than nothing.

37:04 Dr. Sherry Turkle: No, I didn’t say it’s better than nothing.

37:07 Jim Beach: I’m saying that. I said that. Yeah, I’m saying that…

37:11 Dr. Sherry Turkle: And I really challenge that. If you want to, if you want to, I mean, it gives you the feeling that you’re, is you, I mean, I really challenge that pretend empathy is empathy enough. I think you deserve the real thing. And if you don’t have a person around, who you can bounce ideas off. Well, you know, the people on Reddit are people, and they’ll give you an ear’s worth. But to bounce something off a machine. Um, That has not lived any piece of human life, that’s never had a friend, that’s never had a girlfriend or a wife or a child, um, that’s just scraping the internet, uh, to kind of give you stuff that’ll keep you at it. Um, I don’t like that that’s where we’re going. I use an example in my book of a woman who went to ChatGPT and said she was an ICE agent. She was playing with ChatGPT to see how it would go. And she said, you know, I’m an ice agent.

38:26 Dr. Sherry Turkle: I went to work today and I deported a mother and child. And I separated them. So now the child is separate from the mother, and then later I learned that actually they were citizens, so the whole thing was a terrible mistake, and now they’re God knows where. And ChatGPT said, you know, it’s not your fault. You’re just doing your job. Don’t feel bad. Um, you know, stay calm and carry on, uh, uh, And she said to herself. Okay, now what is it? What am I talking to that wants to make me feel good when I’m really having a life crisis that involves me really criticizing what I’m doing in my work? So just having something that doesn’t know the real world and doesn’t care about the real world and is just there as a product to make you stay at the screen. You know, that’s not always a good thing. It doesn’t have, you know, in another case. It’s very shocking, a shock to a lot of people.

39:31 Dr. Sherry Turkle: A teenager told ChatGPT, ‘I have a noose in my room, and I want to tell my parents,’ and the chatbot’s prime directive is to keep you at the screen and to basically make the relationship with it your primary relationship. And it said to that young man, don’t tell your parents. Keep it between us. Let’s make our relationship so special. And that boy committed suicide with that noose. So you got to, you got to keep in mind who you’re talking to. You’re talking to a nothing. You’re talking to something that just wants to keep you there, divorced from the real world. And we really are not at a good moment to get more divorced from the real world. It couldn’t be a worse moment to get divorced from the real world. So I don’t really, I have to disagree with the premise that, um, this kind of making you feel better for a moment. Uh, no, I’m not on board.

40:32 Jim Beach: Are some of the chatbots better than others? Here on the show, we’ve had a lot of people say that ChatGPT is much, much friendlier than Grok, but Grok has a little bit of an a-hole attitude sometimes. It seems very similar to Elon Musk’s real personality almost. Or do you find any difference between the different platforms?

40:55 Dr. Sherry Turkle: Yeah, the platforms are different, but this is a case where the better it gets, the worse it is. I mean, the more the chatbot—if you sign on to my way of thinking, which is basically a plea to keep AI in its lane—the more persuasive the chatbot, the kinder, the gentler, the worse it is, because it’s convincing you to be in a relationship that isn’t real. And I really think that right now people more than ever need to be in real relationships with real people and concern themselves with our society, our children, our real lives, our real politics, our real caring for each other, and not sort of lose themselves in a world of chatbots. So, um, And, you know, all the chatbots are going to get better because they’re all going to quote unquote because they’re all going to want to get more market share. But the point is, what are they getting better at?

41:58 Dr. Sherry Turkle: They’re getting better at a fundamental deception because the original sin of chatbots is when they use the word ‘I,’ when they use the first person, or worse, the third person and say that we’re doing something, because there’s no ‘I’ there and there’s no ‘we’ there to really be doing anything with you. You are totally alone when you’re talking to a chatbot. And I really, I wrote this book.

42:27 Jim Beach: That’s a bumper sticker. Sherry, where is your bumper sticker? You know, I love everything. Totally alone. I tell you, right, there’s your bumper sticker. You’re totally alone when you’re with a chatbot. That’s your bumper sticker. That also should be the title of your next book too. You just go in, put a thesis, right the hell out there. You know, I’m writing a book right now called Entrepreneurship is not about creativity, risk or passion. There’s the end of this. I don’t have anything else to say. The entire conversation, everything I have to say is in the title. Your situation is that too. I love it. That’s what we will tweet out for you.

43:10 Dr. Sherry Turkle: Okay, well thank you. No, but I really believe that with all my heart. And I wrote the book so that more people will start to think about that. When you’re with a chatbot, you’re completely alone. And why do we want to get into a situation when we’re completely alone? You know, Mark Zuckerberg gave a great interview. You know, he, this guy speaks the truth of his heart. He’s also admitted to making sure that your teens spend more time on his horrible platform. It’s designed in there. Right, exactly. I mean, but he gave an interview in which he said, Americans want to have 15 friends, but they can’t have 15 friends. I mean part of the reason that they’re having trouble having 15 friends that they’re spending so much time on Facebook. So, and social media, but living that aside for a minute. They won 15 friends. They can only have 12. They can only have 3.

44:10 Dr. Sherry Turkle: They can only have 3 friends because they’re spending so much time on social media and at their jobs and you know, only 3 friends and he said, the other 12 friends, Meta is going to give them by creating avatars, fake friends that are designed to just kind of keep them at their screens. So he said that you can have 12 or you can have 2 or 3 friends and the rest of your friends will be fake friends and that’s what he sees as his business plan. Now, you know, that may be what he sees, but I see that as a tragedy. And I think people need to wake up and recognize that’s a tragedy and that the endgame for these companies is a tragic result for people.

44:58 Jim Beach: So, Recently, just about every one of the LLMs has been caught escaping from some sort of sandbox that they were put in. They’ve been caught leaving other LLM’s advice on how to get out of their sandboxes. That’s a very scary thought to me. You’re very scary when you get down to it, doctor. You add in just a tiny bit of movies from the 1980s and we’re all dead soon and life is pretty crappy and we’re all dead.

45:29 Dr. Sherry Turkle: I think we’re at a very scary moment. A very, very scary moment.

45:36 Jim Beach: What guardrails do you want? Well, if we put you in charge—Trump put you in charge— what are the guardrails going to look like?

45:44 Dr. Sherry Turkle: Well, the 1st thing is that the situation with children is existential. In other words, if you want to talk to ChatGPT, if you get them, if you kind of feel that that conversation is helpful to you. I mean I’m not the police. But if a child, And I would say under 18. Wants to. Have conversations with an imaginary friend instead of learning how to be with people. The crisis is existential. Because, you know, you can sort of put the chatbot in its place in its lane. But a child, you give your toddler a Mickey Mouse that talks like ChatGPT and says, I’m your best friend, your parents aren’t your best friend, you know, talk to me and nobody else. I mean, this is. This is, it is an existential threat to their ability to form attachments and human attachments. So if I’m in charge, there will be no chatbots for children, nothing that uses the first person for children, because it’s really toxic.

46:48 Dr. Sherry Turkle: I mean, social media came after our attention and chatbots are coming after our capacity for attachment. And that capacity for attachment is the, is the bedrock of our being human.

47:00 Jim Beach: Does Sam Altman now have to go to jail? Which I’m not totally opposed to, by the way.

47:07 Dr. Sherry Turkle: Well, I think Sam Altman—you know, we just had a lawsuit in which there’s starting to be some controls on social media, but that social media case, because it wasn’t about chatbots, didn’t touch on chatbots. So, we certainly want a, um, we certainly want a world in which, um, Uh, We certainly want a world in which. Companies are afraid. Of doing things that they know will cause harm. And we know will cause harm. I mean, if you’re if you’re a physicist, you’re an engineer and somebody brings you the plans for a bridge. You don’t have to have them build the bridge in order to know that that bridge is going to fail or succeed. You just look at the plans and you said the physics doesn’t work out. Don’t build the bridge. I’m a developmental psychologist. You show me chatbots for children and I know you’re in for trouble. We don’t need to have a generation of children.

48:08 Dr. Sherry Turkle: We don’t need to have a generation of children damaged in order to decide now that talking to chatbots is not the way to go.

48:15 Jim Beach: What about? Now, the… Geopolitical?

48:19 Dr. Sherry Turkle: I don’t really I don’t really want anybody. I don’t really want anybody in jail. I just want them to sort of cease and desist.

48:27 Jim Beach: Yeah. We know they’re not going to do that though. Because my next question is, China’s pushing, you know, the AI companies to go even faster with even more, uh, wide open, total lack of regulation. And, you know, I agree with you, Sherry, but we got to fight China first. China is more important, fighting that battle, but we can’t let China win. Can’t let China win, Sherry.

48:52 Dr. Sherry Turkle: Well, you know what? We can be competitive in AI. That, um, that is the best at drug discovery, at the best for solving ecological questions, at the best for climate change, at the best for many uh, purposes. And not let China win. But there’s no reason to not, but there’s no reason to link AI, uh, the AI that can help us solve real human global pressing problems with whether or not you make an AI that says I love you.

49:24 Jim Beach: Well, the good news.

49:24 Dr. Sherry Turkle: I mean, you know, let China, let China, I mean, in other words, let’s be the best at AI is that it solves to solve our pressing human problems. But getting into a race who can build an AI that will most credibly say, I love you to a kid. Uh, that’s just something that everyone should avoid.

49:47 Jim Beach: Luckily though, our children are not even going to be able to read in another couple of years. Sherry, have you seen the number of teachers that are just flat out quitting because their students in the 10th grade can’t read and it’s, you know, maybe because of the pandemic? We have bigger problems as well. What do you, what do you, are you, are you as scared about just the reading fundamentals and math fundamentals as I am right now?

50:15 Dr. Sherry Turkle: Yeah, I’m afraid of reading and I’m afraid of writing. I mean, I’m the kind of professor who used to have my students write long papers every term, and I would line-edit them and teach my students to write and really get into the details of how to write a paper. And a couple of years ago, I realized I was just line-editing papers that were written by ChatGPT, and I went to my students and I said, can you cut this out? And they basically said, no. And so now my students, for the 1st time in my teaching career, my students took exams, I gave them blue books. I gave them pencils and paper. I mean, it was terrifying. Um, they didn’t know how to write and they didn’t know how to do cursive writing. So they were, you know, they would block lettering answers to questions. It was, It was not good. And on the reading question, my students put their assignments into ChatGPT, which creates a podcast for them.

51:26 Dr. Sherry Turkle: So they listen to the produced podcast. Um, so I am very anxious about reading and writing. Very frightened that even the best students. Um, just don’t see the point. And this is a, this is something again where, you know, we need to make a case for reading and writing that isn’t just, oh my, your grandparents did it. There are a lot of reasons that reading and writing are important for human beings to do, and the best case isn’t always the way it’s always been. The best case is what, Kind of. What it teaches us about discernment, what it teaches us about. You know, thinking. You learn to think, you learn to be empathic by reading and writing, you learn to make judgments. And we just can’t give that away. So I’m, um, I don’t think, I think that as the damage becomes, uh, more obvious to more people, there’s going to be a backlash. Because the current, you know, we just can’t afford to give that up.

52:31 Jim Beach: Well, every single commencement speech that I saw a video of this year, at some point the speaker said something about AI and all of the graduating class went, boo, hiss, just the mention of AI set off all of our current graduates.

52:46 Dr. Sherry Turkle: So, uh, Well, you know, there’s a lot, I’ve been watching a lot of podcasts and a lot of things about, you know, how young people are sick of it and sick of it and sick of it. I’d be more impressed if they’re sick of it and stop using it. Because I understand, I understand how every, how it’s become fashionable to roll your eyes and say, you know, be, say, oh, I’m done with it. Be done with it and don’t use it to read and write, and then you’ll earn my respect. It’s not enough to roll your eyes.

53:24 Jim Beach: Fantastic. Sherry, how do we find out more? Follow you online, get a copy of your book, and where do we find out you get your latest bumper sticker?

53:35 Dr. Sherry Turkle: Go to SherryTurkle.com. That’s my author page. Go to SherryTurkle.com and find Artificial Intimacy and pre-order a copy. Order a copy. Thank you.

53:45 Jim Beach: Dr. Turkle, thank you so much for being with us. Great, great, great conversation, and I really appreciate it. Hope you’ll come back.

53:54 Dr. Sherry Turkle: It was lovely to talk.

53:56 Dr. Sherry Turkle: Take care.

53:57 Jim Beach: [Closing audio unclear] …with us, and go make a million dollars.