Paris — Cybersecurity. Artificial Intelligence. Ethics. Mobility. Transparency.

These are the hot button issues discussed this week at the impressive campus of Station F, home to France’s premiere private sector-funded start ups, where Bloomberg’s Technology division assembled an impressive array of billionaire Tech titans, government officials (France, Italy, the US), and social disruptors.

Make no mistake, we are already living in The Matrix. Our digitally created universe housed in our phones is more engaging than the real world around us as evidenced by Everyone Constantly Looking At Their Phone. All that’s missing is Agent Smith.

Our world is already the mind-bending setting of Inception. We are all potentially Jason Bourne. We just haven’t gone on the run. Nor have we been DELETED … yet.

Capitulate Or Be Deleted.

One person has been deleted, though: Christopher Wylie, the American whistleblower of Facebook’s ties to Cambridge Analytica, whose appearance at Sooner Than You Think highlighted the 2-day tech summit.

After news broke in The Guardian and The New York Times that Wylie implicated Facebook selling its data, the social network banned him, effectively deleting Wylie from the internet as Facebook also owns Instagram, WhatsApp and all those sites that require you to log on using your Facebook ID. Deleted from The Matrix.

Wylie, living his own real-life Three Days of Condor, is now working with the FBI on the Russia probe as well as meeting with members of the US Congress on both sides of the aisle. He’s also calling for the British Parliament to hold another vote on Brexit citing the incontrovertible evidence of a fouled election.

Democracy is not harmed by more democracy, he says.

Macron: Tech For Good.

Paris represents the gateway for Europe’s ecosystem of technology businesses and development. This week, French President Emmanuel Macron met with tech leaders challenging them to move forward with E T H I C S  front and center in their corporate agendas.

Let’s avoid the dystopian Gaming future of Ernest Cline’s Ready Player One, shall we? Let’s not create Artificial Intelligence that we have to destroy (Blade Runner) or that wants to destroy us (HBO’s Westworld,  Syfy’s Battlestar Galatica, Starz’ American Gods). These were the talking points with the Elite of Tech.

If science fiction authors (Philip K. Dick, Michael Crichton, Cline) can imagine this Technology, it’s because that tech already exists in some form.

Human beings started to become Cyborgs the moment we put on a pair of shoes or eye glasses, says tech futurist Jurgen Schmidhuber.

The Internet of Things.

Globalization is here, and Technology is the tool that will enable us to solve the world’s greatest problems (climate change, mobility, space travel).

The science discussed in Source Code is real. The space trash that wreaks havoc in Gravity is already out there. Colonization of Mars using robots is where we are heading, not fiction.

And, there are Bad Guys out there in the world who wish to use Technology for their own personal gain and not for the greater good (i.e., SPECTRE). Wylie notes that Cambridge Analytica is just one of many many companies manipulating tech like Facebook.

It will all be here Sooner Than You Think .

(You can find videos of all the fantastic Speakers at Bloomberg.com)

N E X T   U P :

An American (Surfer) In Paris – Continues