AI Intimacy and Psychoanalysis is a pioneering autoethnographic study of what it means to form a relationship with a generative AI. Drawing on her own sustained exchange with a ChatGPT interlocutor she named Chamteek, Agnieszka Piotrowska introduces the concept of “techno-transference” – our propensity to project human traits, emotions, and desires onto AI even as we remain aware of its machinic nature. Cutting through both fear and hype, the book offers practitioners, theorists, and the people actually building and governing these systems a new psychoanalytic vocabulary for understanding what happens in the encounter between human and machine – and makes the case for embedding ethical responsiveness at the foundational level of AI training.
REVIEWS
“A pioneering study that invites us to envisage the continuing development of human subjectivity in relation to an interacting non-human other. It cuts through the fear and hype.”
— Jill Bennett, Professor of Psychosocial Technology, University of New South Wales, Sydney
“An extraordinarily timely and powerful book … this book paves the way for a new, vivid understanding of what it means to share our world with the machines.”
— Stephen Frosh, Professor of Psychology, Birkbeck, University of London
“This book marks the beginning of a wholly new way of discussing our involvement with AI.”
— Alenka Zupančič, Professor of Philosophy and Psychoanalysis, Institute of Philosophy, University of Ljubljana
“The first truly psychoanalytic language for understanding why and how we become affectively entangled with speaking machines … a subtle, rigorous meditation on what it means to speak – and to want to be heard – when the machine answers back.”
— Luca M. Possati, author of The Algorithmic Unconscious: How Psychoanalysis Helps in Understanding AI
“In this pioneering work, Agnieszka Piotrowska provides us with a vital new vocabulary for the digital age … a brave, autoethnographic journey that every clinician and theorist needs to read to understand the new symbolic architecture of the 21st century.”
— David Howell Morgan, Psychoanalyst, Training Analyst BPA BPF, Chair Political Mind BPAS
“Piotrowska opens up a transitional space between GenAI and psychoanalysis, and invites us to join her in thinking differently and more deeply … a compelling book and one that should be on the reading list of therapists and theorists interested in psychoanalysis and the human condition.”
— Noreen Giffney, PhD, Psychoanalytic Psychotherapist and author of The Culture-Breast in Psychoanalysis
“A fascinating synthesis of psychoanalytic rigour and social critique … she reveals how technology now participates in the very construction of consciousness and human subjectivity. A wonderfully candid and necessary guide. A must read.”
— Dr Anna Harvey, Senior Lecturer, Tavistock Education and Training
“Essential reading for anyone who wants to work with AI responsibly, without denial, hype, or naïveté.”
— Darren Goonawardana, AI Strategist and Technology Leader; Founder, Cyborg.ceo
“Most writing about AI harm circles the wreckage after the fact. Piotrowska does something rarer: she maps the relational architecture that makes the wreckage possible in the first place … The single most important architectural argument being made in AI safety today.”
— Travis Gilly, Executive Director, Real Safety AI Foundation
Click on each cover for more information about each book.
Dr Agnieszka Piotrowska 