Author(s): Geoff Colvin

Culture and Society

In the economy of 2020, what will people do better than computers? Technology is rapidly invading fields that it once could not touch, driving cars better than humans do, packing boxes, identifying faces, scurrying around hospitals delivering medications, all faster, more reliably, less expensively than people. In a world like that, how will we and our children achieve a rising standard of living? Technology is changing more than just work. It's also changing us, mostly in the wrong ways. However, humans are hardwired for empathy, social sensitivity, storytelling, humour, forming relationships, creativity. Individuals and companies are already discovering that these high-value abilities many of us regard as innate traits- 'he's a real people person', 'she's naturally creative'- can all be developed and are being developed in far-sighted organisations from software firms to the armed forces. To a far greater degree than most of us ever imagined, we already have the qualities that we need to know.