The fact that people and machines can collaborate on a higher level is ignored by the scenarios that would have us believe that artificial intelligence will rob people of their employment. Scenarios such as this are dubious. But unfortunately, they are potent as well -- nothing sells so well as bad news. Take the much quoted study by the Oxford academics Osborne and Frey, which has rightly been described as a "back-of-the-envelope" study. It attempts to establish whether roughly 700 types of jobs in the U.S. can be automated or not. With scant regard for method, Osborne and Frey extrapolate from their findings to conclude that nearly half of all jobs in the U.S. are at risk.