In each Industrial Revolution, a first imaginative step resulted in a great leap forward for societal living standards, a mass flourishing.18 In that sense the three industrial revolutions of the past three centuries fit the longer-run evolutionary arc of humankind. It is creativity and imagination, fuelled by big brains and nourished by cooked meals, that set humans on their jet-propelled evolutionary path. The rapid, ideas-fuelled, progress made by societies over recent centuries is a continuation of that ever-upward evolutionary arc. Except, that is, for one small detail. The evolutionary arc of humans has not been ever-upward. The historical path has not been a North-bound ascent. While human ingenuity and creativity have been ever-  17 18  Haldane (2018a). Mokyr (2011). 9  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  9  present, economies and societies have in fact spent protracted periods crabbing sideways. Prior to the first Industrial Revolution, living standards appear to have been essentially static for several thousand years.19 Living standards in Glasgow in 1750 were little different than their ancestors constructing Hadrian’s Wall. Levels of poverty, nutrition, infant mortality, height and longevity would also have been indistinguishable. Prior to the Industrial Revolution, societies and economies stood still, financially and physiologically. There was flat-lining, not mass flourishing. Societal progress was far from being a social norm. What explains this great pause in living standards? It was not through lack of ideas and imagination. People did not suddenly make like monkeys for millennia.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution From the past to the future. A new technological wave is breaking. On some accounts, this wave could be as great as any seen previously. The so-called Fourth Industrial Revolution is associated with the emergence of a whole new class of technologies with the potential to be tomorrow’s GPT.24 These include machine learning, Big Data, robotics, bio-technologies and Artificial Intelligence (AI). The rise of the robot has well and truly begun.25 Machines, and indeed robots, are not of course new. Nor are fears of them rising up and taking jobs and control. The Luddites had the same concerns in the 19th century. This time, though, seems a bit different. 24 25  Klingenberg (2017). Ford (2015). 11  All speeches are available online at www.bankofengland.co.uk/speeches  11  These machines, unlike their predecessors during the first three industrial revolutions, are capable of thinking as well as doing. Although this might sound like a small step for humankind, it is a potential game-changer. So far in human history, humans have kept one-step-ahead of the machine by gravitating towards tasks out of robotic reach. That has meant cognitive tasks. This spawned the growth of educational institutions, with universal primary and then secondary education and then the rapid expansion of colleges and universities. In other words, humans used the self-same neurological advantage over machines as had earlier put them on an entirely different evolutionary arc to other animals. Except, unlike with animals, it is not clear humans will retain their cognitive lead over machines.