Is There a Guard Rail, No Back Up?

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"It's a heart breaking book. In many passages, it is an illuminating book," says author A.A. Anda. She talks about how her mother divorced her birth father when she was young and kept the two of you apart for reasons that we won't talk about here. "You have no name, you can be anyone, but there is no guard rail, no back up", writes Anda. 'An absent father makes everything seem possible and nothing seems safe'

Psychologist and author Sherry Turkle of MIT talks about her book, The Empathy Diaries, with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. The Empathy Diaries is a memoir about Turkle's secretive family and how that secrecy turned Turkle into an acute observer, skilled at revealing the story behind the story. She also chronicles the early days of artificial intelligence and the evolution of the computer. Topics in this conversation include the challenges of family, the role of technology in our lives, the limits of artificial intelligence, and the importance of Bambi.