In a few decades , artificial intelligence ( AI ) will surpass many of the abilities that we believe make us special . This is a grand challenge for our age and it may require an " irrational " response . One of the most significant pieces of news from the US in early 2017 was the efforts of Google to make autonomous driving a reality . According to a report , Google's self - driving cars clocked 1,023,330 km , and required human intervention 124 times . That is one intervention about every 8,047 km of autonomous driving . But even more impressive is the progress in just a single year : human interventions fell from 0.8 times per thousand miles to 0.2, a 400% improvement . With such progress , Google's cars will easily surpass my own driving ability later this year . Driving once seemed to be a very human skill . But we said that about chess , too . Then a computer beat the human world champion , repeatedly . The board game Go (围棋) took over from chess as a new test for human thinking in 2016, when a computer beat one of the world's leading professional Go players . With computers conquering what used to be deeply human tasks , what will it mean in the future to be human ? I worry about my six - year - old son . What will his place b е in a world where machines beat us in one area after another ? He'll never calculate faster , never drive better , or even fly more safely . Actually , it all comes down to a fairly simple question : What's so special about us ? It can't be skills like arithmetic , which machines already excel in . So far , machines have a pretty hard time emulating creativity , arbitrary enough not to be predicted by a computer , and yet more than simple randomness . Perhaps , if we continue to improve information - processing machines , well soon have helpful rational assistants . So we must aim to complement the rationality of the machine , rather than to compete with it . If I'm right , we should foster a creative spirit because a dose of illogical creativity will complement the rationality of the machine . Unfortunately , however , our education system has not caught up to the approaching reality . Indeed , our schools and universities are structured to mould pupils to be mostly obedient servants of rationality , and to develop outdated skills in interacting with outdated machines . We need to help our children learn how to best work with smart computers to improve human decision - making . But most of all we need to keep the long - term perspective in mind : that even if computers will outsmart us , we can still be the most creative . Because if we aren't , we won't be providing much value in future ecosystems , and that may put in question the foundation for our existence .