What Should My Children Do?

In WHAT SHOULD MY CHILDREN DO? Daniel Susskind will teach you how to:

• We can’t future proof, but we have to future prepare.
• Kids need AI fluency and awareness.
• AI is the 21st century’s calculator. It’s the tool they can use.
• But smart AI users are also critical thinkers: schools must double down on literacy, numeracy, and social emotional skills.
• The answer is to teach both, test both – and train for attention as a skill.

“Engaging. . . The book overall is a nuanced mixture of realism and optimism. For all AI’s capabilities, Susskind thinks we will prefer to watch human athletes and musicians than robots, trust human judges and politicians with moral decisions, appreciate handcrafted things, and value human empathy in healthcare, social work, psychotherapy, spiritual guidance and teaching. Humans are, after all, still playing chess tournaments, 30 years after Deep Blue beat Kasparov.” —Camilla Cavendish, Financial Times

“Susskind neatly weaves the conceptual and the practical. . . his book is at once challenging, compelling and refreshingly optimistic.” —Simon Usborne, The Guardian

“Susskind is good on how an LLM, properly used, can be an invaluable personal tutor. . . [he] knows very well that any thoughts about AI can look outdated in a matter of months, so he’s not so foolish as to tell us which jobs will survive. . .” —Simon Usborne, The Guardian

“As old paradigms of work and education fade, we need new ideas for a time of extreme change. This is a wise and brilliant guide that shows us not only what to do, but why human potential still matters.” —Mustafa Suleyman, CEO of Microsoft AI and coauthor of The Coming Wave

“An essential navigation tool for parents and students alike. In What Should My Children Do?, Daniel Susskind looks plainly at some of the most urgent issues of our day and argues for flexibility, basic skills, and working with AI instead of against it. Susskind doesn’t pretend to know exactly what’s coming, but he offers a wise and constructive framework to make the future digestible, manageable and a little less terrifying.” —Pamela Druckerman, bestselling author of Bringing Up Bébé

“In an age when machines can master almost any technical skill, education must aim higher. Daniel Susskind makes a compelling case that we should prepare children not merely to be competent, but to become thoughtful, resilient, morally discerning human beings. What Should My Children Do? is a deeply humane guide to education in the age of AI—and a must-read.” —Erik Brynjolfsson, Jerry Yang and Akiko Yamazaki Professor at Stanford University and co-author of The Second Machine Age

“Few subjects could be more urgent, and few writers are better equipped to address it. Daniel Susskind has thought deeply about the impact of AI on all of us and on future generations. He shows the way forward with a clarity that is rare in the midst of today’s uncertainties. I love his argument that succeeding in the coming decades will require not only the teaching of competence but the cultivation of character. This is a book not only to read but to reflect upon at length.” —William Hague, chancellor of University of Oxford

“Whether you’re a parent, teacher, student, worker, or simply a curious human being, you’ll benefit from Daniel Susskind’s timely and important book. I found his discussion of the challenges and opportunities posed by A” to be cogent, prescient, and convincing—I believe that you will agree.” —Howard Gardner, John H. and Elisabeth A. Hobbs Research Professor of Cognition and Education, Harvard Graduate School of Education

Praise for Growth

Barack Obama’s ‘Best Books of 2024’ * Runner-up for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year 2024 * New Yorker Best Books of 2024

“This well-written, thought-provoking book is essential reading.” —Daron Acemoglu, New York Times bestselling coauthor of Why Nations Fail

“Susskind’s study is a tour de force.” —Gordon Brown, former British prime minister

“Clear and sensible . . . Growth succeeds smartly as a history of thought.” ―The Wall Street Journal

“Daniel Susskind writes with verve, style, and conviction about one of the most important issues of our age.” —Rory Stewart, former secretary of state for international Development (UK) and author of How Not to Be a Politician

“This is a wonderfully elegant and authoritative explanation-cum-manifesto for what is perhaps the most important economic issue facing us today—the mystery of economic growth and what we need to do to solve it.” —Andy Haldane, former chief economist and executive director of Financial Stability at the Bank of England and one of Time’s 100 most influential people of 2014

Praise for A World Without Work

Shortlisted for the Financial Times and McKinsey Business Book of the Year 2020 * A Sunday Times Best Business Book of the Year 2020 * The Times of London Best Business Book of the Year 2020 * The Financial Times Best Books of the Year 2020

“Compelling . . . thought-provoking . . . Should be required reading for any presidential candidate thinking about the economy of the future.” ―The New York Times

“An excellent and timely piece of analysis . . . A book of immense importance that demands to be taken very seriously by No. 10, and by anyone who cares about the future of our country and world.” ―New Statesman

“A fascinating book about a vitally important topic—and he writes with such elegance that you don’t even notice how much you’re learning. Elegant, original, and compelling.” —Tim Harford, author of Fifty Things That Made the Modern Economy

“A superb and sophisticated contribution to the debate over work in the age of artificial intelligence.” —Jeffrey D. Sachs, professor of economics, Columbia University, and president of the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network