Intelligent tools are diffusing through our economies and society. Some of the developments are powerfully changing how our economies work and how we live our lives. Some of the purported developments are simply hype. Amid the froth, many believe that our current social and economic arrangements will be swept aside and, at the extreme—that we will become the metaphorical “pets” of super-intelligences. Others, ourselves included, assert that the world is ours to create. That is easy to assert but difficult to demonstrate and harder still to implement. This essay is meant as a step toward developing sustainable and equitable communities in the era of intelligent tools. This exploratory essay proceeds in three steps. First, we offer clear conclusions about the impact of intelligent tools on work, the economy, and society, in terms of how much is uncertain and how little we know. Technology is not an ineluctable force, and, though not entirely plastic, development trajectories can be shaped. A key conclusion, from consideration of the literature and observation of current technologies, is that choices about their deployment, the purposes to which they are put, and how they are used are central to their trajectories and hence their socio-economic impacts. Second, we argue that those choices will turn, in substantial measure, on how we view our communities and workforces. Are our workforces assets on which the competitiveness of firms can be built or simply costs that must be cut? Those choices of deployment will be filtered through the business models of firms and the policies and values of governments and non-profit organizations. The greatest impact of the technologies on society will, arguably, be through the reconfiguration of business models and the resulting employment choices and consequences of the newly conceived business strategies. Third, the interpretative narratives about technologies, particularly business literature about what firms can and must do to win in the markets, will be as important as the concrete “facts” of the case. Will the narratives suggest that technologies must be resisted, or will the narratives tell us that they can be harnessed to our advantage? Therefore, we end this essay with suggestions on the importance of narrative and what must be done to create a factual foundation for narratives that can sustain healthy and equitable communities.