The engine of societal progress would no longer be human ingenuity, imagination and intelligence. Instead it would be artificial ingenuity, imagination and intelligence. Scared yet? Co-Evolution Don’t be. I want to argue that loss of human jobs and control of their destinies is far from being the only possible, or even the most likely, ending to this story. Humans can remain in work and masters of their own destiny. As in the past, there are good grounds for optimism. This will, however, require some fundamental changes to human skills and human work and in the social institutions supporting them. 26  Manyika et al (2017). Lawrence (2017), and House of Parliament, Parliamentary Office of Science & Technology (2016). 28 Baweja (2016), Lawrence (2017), and Berriman (2018). 29 Kurzweil (2005). 30 Tegmark (2017). 27  13  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  13  One reason for optimism is that, for the foreseeable future, humans are likely to retain their upper hand across a number of tasks. One such set of tasks are those requiring large doses of creativity involving leaps of imagination or bespoke design. Super-computers have designed and created international supply chains for nuts. But they are no more likely than squirrels to replace Roald Dahl or Tim Burton any time soon. A second set of tasks not easily machine-reproducible involve interpersonal or social skills. There are robots for childcare and social care. But I doubt they will become the norm. People are social animals and value social interaction above all else.

Creativity is not the result of random lightning strikes of inspiration. It is about creating the right environment for lightening to strike in the first place. The shapes and colours of our offices are important. Eating and sleeping patterns matter. Walking helps. Meeting new people matters. New experiences work wonders (and wonder).43 Creativity does not require an apple to land coincidentally on the head of a genius, any more than it requires the coincidence of a Watt, a Hargreaves and an Arkwright in the late 18th century in latitudes North of Stockport. Creativity is a core skill in us all – indeed, the one skill we know is uniquely human. But nurturing it requires the right environment, as Ken Robinson’s reflections on our educational systems make clear. Apples are less likely to fall on our heads if we are deskbound. This point is not confined to creativity. Today’s educational system is heavily skewed towards developing cognitive skills in the young. This made sense during the first three Industrial Revolutions as humans sought to keep ahead of machines that were long brawn and short brain. As machines’ cognitive capacity grew, so too did the demand for institutions offering higher-level cognitive skills, such as colleges and universities. 41  Available at https://www.ted.com/talks/ken_robinson_says_schools_kill_creativity?language=en Available, as if you were bothered, at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L8ukYrWXiI0 43 Available at https://thebestyoumagazine.co/power-of-creativity-by-prof-philip-bond/ 42  17  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  17  These institutions were the right response to the challenges of first three Industrial Revolutions.