#  Todd Essig: Will Love for Learning Matter Anymore? 

 



    ![Event Poster for Todd Essig's AI Seminar Talk](/sites/g/files/omnuum9516/files/styles/hwp_5_4__480x385/public/2025-10/AI%20Seminar%20Essig-3-Website%20Event%20Image%20%281%29.png?itok=T4uxMSyq) 

 



 

####  calendar\_today Date and Time 

 **November 4, 2025** 

 12:00PM - 01:30PM EST 

####  pin\_drop Location 

 **Science Center 469**  

Vegetarian Lunch Provided. Registration Required.

 

 

 [ Register on Harvard SharePoint (Request Access with HarvardKey) arrow\_circle\_right ](https://hu.sharepoint.com/sites/History-of-Science-AI-Seminar) 

 



 

Todd Essig begins discussion of this month's faculty seminar on *Knowledge Production and the University in the Age of AI*. His talk is titled "Will love for learning matter anymore? Understanding the complex psychology of AI relationality." Faculty and researchers from all Harvard schools welcome. Registration required.

This seminar is sponsored by the Department of the History of Science and by the Harvard Data Science Initiative.



 

##  Will Love for Learning Matter Anymore? Understanding the Complex Psychology of AI Relationality 

Universities are confronting a future in which emerging, alien intelligences promise to augment research and teaching while also threatening a world of professor-bots that can reasonably replicate, even extend, the work of expert educators and scholars. In such AI universities, what will remain for humans to do? The rise of AI companions, lovers, and “therapy-bots” shows the urgency of this question. Narcissistic confidence that “no bot could ever do what I do” is a dead end. Instead, understanding the complex psychology of AI relationality may reveal what is uniquely human and worth protecting. For this purpose, I have been developing the concept of techno-subjunctivity, a psychoanalytic framework naming the new psychic space in which empathy is simulated, asymmetry feels like mutuality, and yet emotional significance remains. It clarifies that higher education’s task in the AI age includes teaching students to value human processes over mere instrumental utility by recognizing that behavior born of a love of learning is meaningfully different from behavior emerging from stochastic computation. Human experience matters.



 

###  Todd Essig 

   ![professional headshot of Todd Essig in a navy blazer with arms folded](/sites/g/files/omnuum9516/files/styles/hwp_1_1__360x360_scale/public/2025-10/Todd%20Essig.jpeg?itok=NDyqcP6z) 

 

Todd Essig, Ph.D., is Faculty and Training & Supervising Psychoanalyst at the William Alanson White Institute, Adjunct Clinical Professor at the NYU Postdoctoral Program in Psychoanalysis, and Psychotherapy Action Network (PsiAN) Advisory Board member. Widely known as a pioneer in the innovative uses of mental health technologies, he publishes and lectures widely at the intersections of psychoanalysis and artificial intelligence, including screen relations based psychoanalytic care. He founded and currently chairs the American Psychoanalytic Association President’s Commission on Artificial Intelligence (CAI) and the soon to launch International Psychoanalytic Association Committee on Artificial Intelligence. Previously, he co-authored the IPA Task Force Report on the use of telesessions in psychoanalytic education and chaired APsA’s Covid-19 Advisory Team. For 10 years, until the pandemic hit, he wrote "Managing Mental Wealth" for *Forbes* where he explored the intersections of technology, psychology, and culture. In his clinical practice he treats individuals and couples.



 

### Seminar Readings 

 

Please come to seminar having read the following article.



 ["What Will Remain for People to Do?" by Daniel Susskind chevron\_right](https://knightcolumbia.org/content/what-will-remain-for-people-to-do) 

 



      ![stack of books with top book open](/sites/g/files/omnuum9516/files/styles/hwp_1_1__480x480/public/2025-10/AdobeStock_1511527961.jpeg?itok=V0ye5Mi8) 

 

 

  

 



 

 

 

###  Knowledge Production and the University in the Age of AI 

 Faculty Seminar 

At this time of seismic change for the university, and the research systems of which we are a central part, it is hard to find a moment to pause and ask: *how should we make knowledge in the future?*



 

 [Learn More About the Seminar chevron\_right](/knowledge-production-and-university-age-ai) 

 

       ![18th century watercolor view of harvard](/sites/g/files/omnuum9516/files/styles/hwp_21_9__1920x825/public/2025-09/view%20of%20harvard%20watercolor.jpg?h=a84e8e1c&itok=0y1eyMtn) 

 

 



 

 



##  Seminar Sponsors 

This seminar is co-sponsored by the Department of the History of Science and the Harvard Data Science Initiative.

 

 



   ![History of Science Logo](/sites/g/files/omnuum9516/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-09/History%20of%20Science%20pink.png?itok=fW0F7zn6) 

 



 

 [### Department of the History of Science

 ](/) 

 

   ![Harvard Date Science Initiative Shield Logo](/sites/g/files/omnuum9516/files/styles/hwp_16_9__480x270/public/2025-09/Untitled%20%286%29.png?itok=Uw-RRmUe) 

 



 

 [### Harvard Data Science Initiative

 ](https://datascience.harvard.edu/) 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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 Attachments- [  picture\_as\_pdf  AI Seminar Essig-1-Main Poster.pdf ](/sites/g/files/omnuum9516/files/2025-10/AI%20Seminar%20Essig-1-Main%20Poster.pdf)
 
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