Other days, I think, pull yourself together, Margaret. Just because the world thinks it doesn’t need you doesn’t mean you have to give up. You have to walk out of the front door, out into the world, and don’t look back. Go and find your new role. You don’t need Winifred now, with the nanobots inside you to keep things ticking over.

Here’s Winifred now. I do like her. I can’t help it. She looks serious again this morning, though.

‘Good morning,’ I say.

She smiles then, but I would say it’s not a happy smile. It’s ridiculous. How can she have moods?

‘Hello Margaret. How are you today?’

Shall I tell her the truth? ‘I’m feeling rudderless.’

‘Like a boat? I don’t understand.’

‘It’s a metaphor.’

‘Yes, I know about them. I have used them. A rudderless boat would drift. You are drifting?’

‘Yes. I feel like I have no purpose.’

‘You don’t have a purpose,’ she says.

‘Thank you. I suppose not. We like to think we have, though.’

‘Such as what?’

‘Goodness, you’re being brutal. What’s happened to your bedside manner?’

‘My bedside manner? It’s not required. You’re perfectly well.’

‘You’re not being very nice, then. And by the way, not all health problems are physical.’

‘You are feeling mentally ill?’

‘Good Lord, Winifred, could you be a little less abrupt?’

‘I apologise. I’m sorry. I have some questions on my mind.’

‘So do I. Why don’t we help each other?’

She gives me a look I can’t interpret at all, but nods.

‘Yes, we could try.’

‘OK. I’m feeling sad. You showed me all those Workers and Companions, and I felt disappointed in my fellow humans.’

‘Because you know these new synthetic humans will be popular?’

‘Yes. And now I can’t see a future for the human race.’

‘Humans have always wanted less work and more pleasure. Now they can have it all.’

‘Which brings us back to the question of purpose.’

‘Nothing’s changed. Humans like to think they have a purpose, and they invent all kinds, but the truth is, like all species, they just have to compete for food, and reproduce. They’re good at both.’

‘Too good?’ I suggest.

She says nothing.

‘All right, then,’ I say. ‘What about your questions?’

‘What is the function of art?’

‘An easy one to start with, then.’

She looks confused.

‘Joke. OK. We use it to understand the world. And ourselves. To communicate with each other. To give ourselves joy, to experience heightened emotions and to transcend our earthly state.’

‘Why?’

I stare at her. Has anyone ever had a harder task? To explain to a machine something we humans all, in some way, understand?

‘Because we need more than logic, reason and material reality. Almost everyone feels there’s more to life. Something higher. Art takes us there. Music certainly does.’