Every day we see the emergence of new technologies. And every day we see a widening gap between progress and society’s ability to cope with its consequences. Whether it is an impending shift in the nature of work as technology changes production systems, or the ethical implications of reengineering what it means to be human, the changes we see around us threaten to overwhelm us if we cannot collaborate to understand and direct them.

Stories about killer robots, machine-augmented heroes, laser weapons and battles in space - outer or cyber - have always been good for filling cinema seats, but now they have started to liven up sober academic journals and government white papers.