People thought I was very pro-computer. I was on the cover of Wired magazine. [Then things began to change. In the early 80s,] we met this technology and became smitten like young lovers. But today our attachment is unhealthy.

We expect more from technology and less from each other. We create technology to provide the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.

I think few people of education enter politics because it seems like a contact blood sport.

We're lonely, but we're afraid of intimacy. And so from social networks to sociable robots, we're designing technologies that will give us the illusion of companionship without the demands of friendship.

Everyone is always having their attention divided between the world of the people [they're] with and this other reality.

It’s a way of life to be always texting and when you looks at these texts it really is thoughts in formation. I do studies where I just sit for hours and hours at red lights watching people unable to tolerate being alone. Its as though being along has become a problem that needs to be solved and then technology presents itself as a solution to this problem…Being alone is not a problem that needs to be solved. The capacity for solitude is a very important human skill.

Robots want to love us because the field of artificial intelligence has programmed robots to say they want to love us.