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Why The Responsibletech Wave Is About To Challenge Your World View

This article is more than 5 years old.

Paul Armstrong

This year's Wired Live, it's big annual conference, saw a busy stage focused around 'Responsibletech', storytelling, misinformation and a return to truth and value. Packed with representatives from innovative cities, politicians, quantum biologists and celebrities including Andy Serkis (Gollum in Lord of the Rings), the order of the day was a decidedly 'it's not as bad as you think' vibe.

The first session was an eye-opening look into the city of the future that is forming in Barcelona thanks to a bottom-up approach and focus on services that citizens require. Whether digital currency or rubbish collection, the technologies Barcelona has been adopting follow a clear set of rules that avoid simply being data-sucking hoovers says Francesca Brian, Chief technology and digital innovation office, Barcelona City.

Ex-Prime Minister, Tony Blair, completed a fireside chat with Wired's Editor Greg Williams. The session did not discuss Brexit, but Blair mentioned several times how ill-equipt government often is when handling technological change. "Government is bad at experimenting," said Blair, "it's politician's ignorance, not ill-will, that leads to bad public policy." Blair ended the session with a swipe at China and its rise; "Europe and America need to be put their heads together on this [issue]. We’re not understanding how big this problem will be...China is going to challenge 21st-century leadership; politically...economically." Blair ended by saying that if social media were around when he was in power, he would have probably been out of power a lot sooner.

Jim Al-Khalili, Professor of physics at the University of Surrey, took a whistlestop tour through Quantum Biology ending with a fascinating new look at why birds fly south for the winter. Straight after, Mariana Mazzucato, Professor in the economics of Innovation and Public Value Director, changed gears and talked about missions and how what the private and public sectors are allowed to do needs to change in order for public value to be nurtured to create more moonshots like going to the moon back in the 1960's.

Executive Editor, Jeremy White, curated another impressive gaggle of items to showcase in the TestLab including JUUL (a $15bn-valuation vaping company), Mayku (a Kickstarted tabletop vacuum former), Motochimp's adorable scooter to Small Robot Company's farmbots to bring home how different the future of farming is going to look. No sight of Sophia here, just technology that you'll see in homes and around the world over the next 24-months.

The afternoon saw a darker start with the day's only standing ovation. Bill Browder, CEO and Co-founder, Hermitage Capital Management continues to fight for justice for his slain friend at the hands of Putin's regime. Fearless and focused, he is as he described; "Putin's number one enemy." Amazon's Toni Reid didn't give anything away on the future of Alexa, other than to say they're minimising the creepiness. 'Black Mirror' co-Creators Charlie Brooker and Annabel Jones also stayed tight-lipped over the next season, but Brooker did say; "[Social media companies] should employ worriers."

Gapminder's Co-founder, Anna Rosling Rönnlund, provided a stark look at how wrong our worldviews can be and that on average, monkies often get things right because we blind ourselves with biases. Rönnlund went on to discuss how overly dramatic images in the news rots our brains and discussed the 'Dollar Street' project which shows how similar we are despite living at different ends of the rich-poor money spectrum. One of the best quotes of the day came from Rönnlund; "Trends don’t always continue - don’t extend the line." Rönnlund's call for a return to sense with numbers and expectations during uncertain times; "...even if [something is] bad, it might still be better than it was."

Wired's distinct ability to morph politics with everyday technology and future technologies remains impressive and creates something much bigger than the sum of its parts. Check out wired.co.uk over the next few weeks for videos of the talks from the day.

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