Dialogue, the heart of our mission, helps bring together ideas and expertise to explore and help find solutions to the challenges we face. At Wilton Park the focus is policy and practice, but whatever the purpose of any given dialogue the context and means of expressing thoughts and feelings is changing fast. The digital world has transformed the platforms we use to absorb, filter and communicate. Today our physical and digital realities are interconnected in ways previously imaginable only in science fiction. This event asked:
- How do we use technology to help society and not get lost in abstraction and ‘fakery’?
- When can, and should, simulation and storytelling help test out ideas and think through consequences in responsible ways?
- Who has the responsibility, and the skills, to help do this and why?
The creative industries are compelling storytellers, capable of capturing the imagination of millions of people. This forum brought together government, technologists, academics and all manner of storytellers, from authors to game developers to explore artificial realities, past, present and future, and to see how we can use new networks of the imagination to help shape and navigate policy and practice in international affairs.