“Engineering plays a central role in civilisation,” says Lord Browne. Always has, always will. “Without the tools and techniques created by engineering, the world would be a very empty, cold place. We wouldn’t have energy. We wouldn’t have mechanisms to enhance our memory. We wouldn’t have the ability to keep ourselves safe. Engineering is essential, and the foundation of how we live.” 

These ideas are not reflected in the public understanding of the discipline, an injustice that Browne seeks to put right in his latest book ‘Think, Make, Imagine’. It’s nothing if not ambitious. It’s a book in which he tells the story of engineering’s impact on the past, how it informs the present and how it will shape future civilisation. “Discovery occurs in thousands of different ways in the practice of engineering.” These discoveries are all about, “how you can make things work so that humans can get on with their lives. Sometimes these innovations are to assist with war, but mostly they are to do with peace. In my book, I show just how peaceful the world has become.”

Since stepping down as chief executive of BP in 2007, Browne has maintained his interest in the energy sector, particularly in renewables, and more recently in oil and gas. In what he describes as his “not-for-profit life”, Browne is also currently chair of the Crick Institute, a board member of UKRI and chair of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. He is a fellow of the Royal Society, past president of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a keen investor in artificial-intelligence start-ups. All of which puts him in a strong position to examine engineering as a societal force.

Browne is also an author, known for his memoirs as well as books on chemistry and corporate social responsibility. Perhaps his best-known work to date is ‘The Glass Closet’, an examination of “what it’s like to be gay in engineering”. His latest, however, is certain to put him on the map as one of the most prominent technology essayists of his day. 

“One of the reasons I wrote ‘Make, Think, Imagine’ is that I became increasingly angry with people who thought that civilisation was built on art, history and literature.” Browne goes on to express his belief that, “Civilisation is founded on engineering, which enables everything else to happen. People tend to underestimate both the power and unintended consequences of engineering. So, I wrote a book to get rid of the fear.”

The fear he is alluding to is that which is whipped up in the popular media over issues such as robots creating unemployment, an ageing population that can no longer be medically cared for, connectivity and privacy issues, terrorism in the form of drone strikes. “It is exacerbated by poor communication and poor understanding. It comes from the potential negative consequences of engineering. But it also comes from the fact that engineering has changed so much – our whole idea of life and how long we will live. We see this across the spectrum of engineering.” Today, he says: “Its geography is globalisation. We’re in contact with everybody and that speeds everything up. Engineering has changed because of advances in computational speed and access to memory that was inconceivable a few years ago.”

One of the catalysts for the negative public perception of engineering is that innovation has historically often been led by the desire for increased efficiency in the production of weaponry. “But that’s been going on for ever. It really has.” If you go back to 12th-century Venice, he says, where shipbuilding was undertaken in such an organised frenzy that vessels were rolling off the line at a rate of one per day, “these ships were used for both warfare and commerce. There’s a lot of innovation that comes from creative roots that are different, but come to be used for very great purposes for humanity. Innovation comes from all sorts of things: one of which is existential threat. Dual-use technologies have been invented all the time. It’s up to us to bias their use through peer pressure and what’s now called mutually assured disruption. There are a lot of checks and balances here. This balancing of good and bad has been going on for a long time and I think we need to be rational and realistic about that.”

People may be frightened of technology, says Browne, but there’s no need to be afraid, much less to apply the brakes. “Technology is a wondrous thing. But the problem is that the public doesn’t seem to know how all this technology actually works. There are black boxes everywhere, creating concern. I still remember,” says the 71-year-old engineer, “when people were worried about the telephone. They thought people were listening in, even when the phone was on the hook. The fact is people weren’t listening in. But it was a black box people didn’t understand. This lack of understanding creates the notion, familiar to people exposed to dynamic marketing on the web, that someone is tracking them. But you have to say to yourself: ‘actually that sort of thing doesn’t really matter.’ People are not stupid.” But on the other hand, “they are working on information they are given, which is often not enough. Or they are influenced by ideas that are simply not right.”

Despite ‘the fear’, Browne has produced a book that has optimism at its core. He bases this on an analysis of the facts and figures: we’ve never had so much food, freedom, security, wealth or free time. “In the end it’s all about giving people choice. So, for example, the concern about AI and employment is real. But actually, if you look at the working week, the number of hours we are working is coming down all the time and that’s a good thing.” 

Browne goes on to say that the evolution of technology has taken humanity out of the business “of just surviving” and taken us to the sunlit uplands of “real choice about what we can do with our healthier, wealthier and longer lives”.

‘Make, Think, Imagine’ by John Browne is published by Bloomsbury, £25. E&T readers can buy at a discounted price of £17.50 (plus postage) by quoting ‘MAKE’ when ordering via bloomsbury.com.

“Engineering plays a central role in civilisation,” says Lord Browne. Always has, always will. “Without the tools and techniques created by engineering, the world would be a very empty, cold place. We wouldn’t have energy. We wouldn’t have mechanisms to enhance our memory. We wouldn’t have the ability to keep ourselves safe. Engineering is essential, and the foundation of how we live.” 

These ideas are not reflected in the public understanding of the discipline, an injustice that Browne seeks to put right in his latest book ‘Think, Make, Imagine’. It’s nothing if not ambitious. It’s a book in which he tells the story of engineering’s impact on the past, how it informs the present and how it will shape future civilisation. “Discovery occurs in thousands of different ways in the practice of engineering.” These discoveries are all about, “how you can make things work so that humans can get on with their lives. Sometimes these innovations are to assist with war, but mostly they are to do with peace. In my book, I show just how peaceful the world has become.”

Since stepping down as chief executive of BP in 2007, Browne has maintained his interest in the energy sector, particularly in renewables, and more recently in oil and gas. In what he describes as his “not-for-profit life”, Browne is also currently chair of the Crick Institute, a board member of UKRI and chair of the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering. He is a fellow of the Royal Society, past president of the Royal Academy of Engineering and a keen investor in artificial-intelligence start-ups. All of which puts him in a strong position to examine engineering as a societal force.

Browne is also an author, known for his memoirs as well as books on chemistry and corporate social responsibility. Perhaps his best-known work to date is ‘The Glass Closet’, an examination of “what it’s like to be gay in engineering”. His latest, however, is certain to put him on the map as one of the most prominent technology essayists of his day. 

“One of the reasons I wrote ‘Make, Think, Imagine’ is that I became increasingly angry with people who thought that civilisation was built on art, history and literature.” Browne goes on to express his belief that, “Civilisation is founded on engineering, which enables everything else to happen. People tend to underestimate both the power and unintended consequences of engineering. So, I wrote a book to get rid of the fear.”

The fear he is alluding to is that which is whipped up in the popular media over issues such as robots creating unemployment, an ageing population that can no longer be medically cared for, connectivity and privacy issues, terrorism in the form of drone strikes. “It is exacerbated by poor communication and poor understanding. It comes from the potential negative consequences of engineering. But it also comes from the fact that engineering has changed so much – our whole idea of life and how long we will live. We see this across the spectrum of engineering.” Today, he says: “Its geography is globalisation. We’re in contact with everybody and that speeds everything up. Engineering has changed because of advances in computational speed and access to memory that was inconceivable a few years ago.”

One of the catalysts for the negative public perception of engineering is that innovation has historically often been led by the desire for increased efficiency in the production of weaponry. “But that’s been going on for ever. It really has.” If you go back to 12th-century Venice, he says, where shipbuilding was undertaken in such an organised frenzy that vessels were rolling off the line at a rate of one per day, “these ships were used for both warfare and commerce. There’s a lot of innovation that comes from creative roots that are different, but come to be used for very great purposes for humanity. Innovation comes from all sorts of things: one of which is existential threat. Dual-use technologies have been invented all the time. It’s up to us to bias their use through peer pressure and what’s now called mutually assured disruption. There are a lot of checks and balances here. This balancing of good and bad has been going on for a long time and I think we need to be rational and realistic about that.”

People may be frightened of technology, says Browne, but there’s no need to be afraid, much less to apply the brakes. “Technology is a wondrous thing. But the problem is that the public doesn’t seem to know how all this technology actually works. There are black boxes everywhere, creating concern. I still remember,” says the 71-year-old engineer, “when people were worried about the telephone. They thought people were listening in, even when the phone was on the hook. The fact is people weren’t listening in. But it was a black box people didn’t understand. This lack of understanding creates the notion, familiar to people exposed to dynamic marketing on the web, that someone is tracking them. But you have to say to yourself: ‘actually that sort of thing doesn’t really matter.’ People are not stupid.” But on the other hand, “they are working on information they are given, which is often not enough. Or they are influenced by ideas that are simply not right.”

Despite ‘the fear’, Browne has produced a book that has optimism at its core. He bases this on an analysis of the facts and figures: we’ve never had so much food, freedom, security, wealth or free time. “In the end it’s all about giving people choice. So, for example, the concern about AI and employment is real. But actually, if you look at the working week, the number of hours we are working is coming down all the time and that’s a good thing.” 

Browne goes on to say that the evolution of technology has taken humanity out of the business “of just surviving” and taken us to the sunlit uplands of “real choice about what we can do with our healthier, wealthier and longer lives”.

‘Make, Think, Imagine’ by John Browne is published by Bloomsbury, £25. E&T readers can buy at a discounted price of £17.50 (plus postage) by quoting ‘MAKE’ when ordering via bloomsbury.com.