You don’t have to have a degree in machine learning, robotics or programming to know that, actually, yes they very likely will. As long as the technology keeps progressing – and it will unless the Luddite movement spontaneously reignites, and we get a Butlerian jihad – machines will get smarter and smarter and smarter. Why would they suddenly stop at a level of intelligence like a horse refusing a jump?

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In fact, you only need to read your question to know “never” is a big call when it comes to AI. Fifteen years ago, you wouldn’t have dreamed of typing your work worries into a computer and getting a reply that seemed genuinely thoughtful. (Twenty-five years ago you would have been typing into Alta-Vista and might have ended up in GeoCities.)

And genuinely thoughtful is what you should have expected from your HR department. The best HR people, I always find, possess a wonderful combination of deep empathy and calm practicality. They’re also very good at dealing with nuance and complexity, they avoid formulas, and they refrain from cold dismissal at all costs – they do everything 2023 AI is incapable of.

At some time in the future ChatGPT (or its successors) will be able to give you all of that and more. In the meantime, if I worked in a role that required creativity, empathy and curiosity (such as HR professional or, I don’t know, advice columnist), I’d be fervently avoiding through-the-motions platitudes and callous disregard for others’ problems and plights.