My research examines what happens when people form relationships with AI, how those relationships are experienced, what they reveal about identity and agency, and how they quietly shape the design of the systems people use every day.
My recent book, The Naked Android: Synthetic Socialness and the Human Gaze, examines how the stories people tell about robots and AI don't merely reflect how these systems are built; they actively shape them. Available from Routledge, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.
Recent
Publication — AI & Society
How emotional attachment to conversational AI develops through interaction over time — and what that means for trust, dependency, and governance.
Blog — Drift
How conversational AI creates new conditions for human connection.
Press — WIRED
Sexual interaction with conversational AI takes place inside systems built to remember, personalize, and retain what users share — and that changes the stakes.
Speaking — Cal Poly
Upcoming: May 7. AI Symposium 2026 — Advancing Learning, Discovery, and Responsible Innovation. An examination of how AI systems stop being tools and become part of the environment, and what that means for attachment, cultural embedding, and responsibility.
Press — New York Times
Quoted in Kashmir Hill’s investigation into how AI reshapes the boundaries between technology and human companionship.