One of the most persistent technology predictions to have emerged in the past decade is that artificial intelligence (AI) will be transformative in how we go about our daily lives. If the screed of near-horizon futurology is to be believed, one of AI’s most significant impacts will be on the way we work. Opinions are divided between, at one end of the spectrum, robots taking over from the human workforce and fragmenting the labour market while, at the other, the forecast that we can leave iterative grunt work to computers while we get on with tasks that are more creative and rewarding, while perhaps even fitting in an extra round or two of golf.

When pictures are painted in such extremes of light and shade it’s time to call in the experts, and in ‘Working with AI: Real Stories of Human-Machine Collaboration’ (The MIT Press, £28, ISBN 9780262047241) we benefit not just from the hard-won wisdom of two leaders in the field – Thomas H Davenport and Steven...