TO BREAK THE RULES,

YOU MUST FIRST MASTER

THEM.
_$8'(0$563,*8(7&20_,1)5$5('3+272*5$3+<
 The power of control.

Model shown is a Fiesta ST-3 3-Door 1.5 200PS Manual Petrol with optional Full LED Headlamps.
Fuel economy mpg ( l/100km): Combined 40.4 ( 7.0). *CO 2 emissions 136g/km.

Figures shown are for comparability purposes; only compare fuel consumption and CO 2 figures with other cars
tested to the same technical procedures. These figures may not reflect real life driving results, which will depend upon a
number of factors including the accessories fitted (post-registration), variations in weather, driving styles and vehicle load.
* There is a new test used for fuel consumption and CO 2 figures. The CO 2 figures shown, however, are based on the
outgoing test cycle and will be used to calculate vehicle tax on first registration.
This advertisement has been approved for issue by Pictet and Cie (Europe) S.A., London Branch, which is authorised and regulated by the Commission de Surveillance du Secteur Financier (CSSF) and subject to limited
regulation by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Prudential Regulation Authority (PRA). The value of an investment can go down as well as up, and investors may not get back the full amount invested.

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 Fe at ure

SOFTBANK’S
BIG PL AY

Under the leadership of

CEO Masayoshi Son,
Japanese conglomerate
SoftBank is taking
over tech, one firm at a time P.072
 CO N TEN TS
PHOTOGRAPHY: RYAN PFLUGER / AUGUST
The clearest water on Earth
The Silfra fissure, Iceland
 p. 016 S t ar t p . 1 1 4 F e a t ur e p. 1 2 8 Fe atu re

P OW E R D RE S SI N G
Need some extra muscle? Try
slipping on the Seismic suit
– an electrified onesie that can
give you a performance boost
S CR E E N IDOL
John Underkoffler had a career
creating wild sci-fi interfaces
for Hollywood – until businesses
asked him to build them for real
TH E IL LU SI O N IS T S
Conjurors and neuroscientists
are discovering how magic tricks
can help us understand the inner
workings of the human brain

p. 0 48 G ea r p. 1 22 Fea t ure

R OAD TR I P CREATIVIT Y CODED

WIRED picks the best kit for
an epic journey, from acoustic/
electric guitars to hybrid cars,
fire pits and cool sunglasses
ENTS
Flashes of inspiration are seen CONT
as a uniquely human trait – but
as Marcus du Sautoy explains,
the AIs are rapidly catching up

p. 061 Work Smar ter

 WO R K/ PL AY Below : Buzz Aldrin

Coworking spaces are offering a hangs on to the side of
new service – childcare for the Agena Workstation
busy entrepreneurs who want to high above the Earth
mix parenthood with hotdesking on November 12, 1966

p. 0 8 2 Fe at ure

SA FE & S O U N D?
ASMR is a global phenomenon on
YouTube, with children creating
custom videos for adults who get
PHOTOGRAPHY: NASA, FROM THE NASA ARCHIVES: 60 YEARS IN SPACE, PUBLISHED BY TASCHEN FEB 25

a thrill from their peculiar sounds

p . 0 9 2 F e a t ur e

N AS A AT 6 0
The US space agency has been
going boldly for six decades.
We take an exclusive look inside
its vast archive of historic photos

p . 1 0 2 F e a t ur e

U NF INIS H ED
Massive Attack’s seminal album,
Mezzanine, is 20 years old. To
celebrate, its getting a remix
using DNA, AI – and spray paint
Editor Greg Williams
Group creative director Andrew Diprose
Executive editor Jeremy White
Features director João Medeiros
Digital editor James Temperton
Senior editor Victoria Turk
Senior editor Matt Burgess
Senior editor Gian Volpicelli
Business editor Katia Moskvitch
Associate editor Sophie Charara
Staff writer Matt Reynolds
Engagement manager Andy Vandervell
Interns Daphne Leprince-Ringuet,
Sanjana Varghese
Managing director Albert Read
Chairman Nicholas Coleridge
Chairman and chief executive,
Condé Nast International
Jonathan Newhouse
Director of editorial
administration and rights
Harriet Wilson
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Stephanie Chrisostomou
Human resources director
Hazel McIntyre
Head of finance
Daisy Tam
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Sabine Vandenbroucke
Directors Nicholas Coleridge,
Shelagh Crofts, Edward Enninful,
Simon Gresham Jones, Dylan Jones,
Albert Read, Sabine Vandenbroucke
WIRED
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London W1S 1JU
Managing editor Mike Dent
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Contributing editors Dan Ariely,
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Russell M Davies, Oliver Franklin-Wallis,
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controller Louise Lawson
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production controller Martin MacMillan
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Eye/LOEWE/Nature

Menswear and accessories

inspired by the great outdoors loewe.com
 Warren du Preez &
Nick Thornton Jones

P H O T O G R A P H Y: B E N E D I C T R E D G R O V E ; A N D R E W D I P R O S E ; J A M E S D AY.
Bringing their slick,
surrealist aesthetic
NO W Y O U SE E IT… to our feature on
the reimagining of
Set designer Vicky Massive Attack’s
Lees employed a few Mezzanine, du Preez
tricks of her own for and Thornton Jones

I L L U S T R AT I O N : M AT T H E W G R E E N
the opening image photograph art-
to our magic feature: creating robot arms,
“I liked the idea of vintage studio tech,
bending your brain and Robert Del Naja
with an illusion, so I – who really does live,
tried to make readers breath and wear spray
question what they’re paint at all times.
C REATIN G seeing,” she says.
WI RE D “The two-way mirrors 0  
create a surreal vista
– the weird objects are
actually a bit of rubber
tubing, some bendy
garden wire, and few
bits of painted wood.”

D NA , A I, AR & 3D

Creative director Andrew Diprose visits the studio of Robert Del

Naja (AKA 3D) for our feature story, Unfinished Symphony: “The
place is heaven for anyone who is into graffiti, graphic design or
happens to be a huge Massive Attack fan. Everywhere you look you
see fantastic art, stencil prints, robots… even a full-size Doctor
Who Cyberman. 3D was the perfect host, and my whole shoot crew
geeked out on robotics, coding, AR and music production. The
mix of bleeding edge DNA technology and old-school spray paint Jo ao Mede iros Am eli a Tai t
stencil art was mind-blowing. The image above is Del Naja spraying WIRED’s features Tait explores the global
a DNA version of Mezzanine on to analogue vinyl. Very meta.” director profiles phenomenon of children
Masayoshi Son, becoming ASMR
founder of SoftBank, megastars on YouTube.
the Japanese company ”Humans love pleasure,
that’s driving the global whether that comes
tech scene with an from a slice of pizza
investment portfolio or someone tapping a
including giant startups microphone in a way that
Uber and Alibaba: “Son makes your brain tingle,”
is renowned for having she says. “Many adults
a 300-year plan for find children whispering
investing. He has a gift especially relaxing, and
for seeing an idea’s kids like to watch their
long-term potential.” peers do stuff online.”

S C AL E BUI L DI NG

This issue, photographer Benedict Redgrove tours the latest addition to the UK’s defences, the HMS
Prince of Wales: “Driving over the bridge from Edinburgh airport, you can see the ship just dwarfing
the buildings around it. The moment you get aboard and start walking around, it’s hard to describe just
how vast it feels. It’s also possibly the most expensive and technical building site I’ve ever been on.”

‘Next big things’
don’t just appear
from nowhere
F ROM THE You may not have heard of Bill Gross,
E DITOR but you have been productised by him.
The software entrepreneur is respon-
sible for one of the most significant
economic models of the internet era.
In 1996, Gross founded GoTo.com, a
search engine with the tagline “search
made simple”. Search engines of the
time, like Alta Vista, were strewn with
features such as email and weather
updates that made even finding a
search bar challenging. Besides the
cleaner interface, GoTo distinguished
itself in another important way – all its
search results would be sponsored.
Gross’s idea seems obvious today
but, at the time, enabling commercial
entities to buy keywords and elevating
content according to the highest bidder
was entirely new. Display adver-
tising wasn’t an original idea –
but advertisers competing for
eyeballs in real-time was.
GoTo rebranded as Overture
in 2001 to focus on being a third-
party service provider to other
search engines. In 2003, it was
bought by Yahoo!, as much of its
revenue was generated by GoTo.
Today, Gross’s vision can be
seen in Google Ads (rebranded
from AdWords in July 2018), the
western internet’s dominant
commercial model, with
revenues in 2017 of $95 billion.
Of course, Google’s original
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Technology Magazine of the Year 2012 • DMA Editor of the Year 2012 • BSME Editor of the Year, Special Interest 2012 • D&AD Award: Covers 2012 • DMA Editor
of the Year 2011 • DMA Magazine of the Year 2011 • DMA Technology Magazine of the Year 2011 • BSME Art Director of the Year, Consumer 2011 • D&AD Award:
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mission wasn’t to create one of the
world’s most profitable businesses;
it was to organise all the world’s infor-
mation, initially via a search engine
that had no commercial underpin-
nings – AdWords wasn’t introduced
until October 2000, two years after the
company was founded. Its pre-emi-
nence has been built on its function-
ality, its uncluttered UI and delivery of
results with a high degree of relevance.
Such is the way with innovation; much
like geologists examining strata in rock
formations, it’s possible to examine the
underpinnings of dominant players in
every category. The iPhone is often
cited as a technology that made the
rest of the marketplace obsolete. But
the iPhone was the culmination of
innovation in batteries, LCDs, Wi-Fi and
the internet that has origins in the work
of physicists and chemists in previous
centuries. The impact brought about by
mobile technology can be traced back
to pioneers whose names are forgotten.
As I write, the annual jamboree of
technology, the Consumer Electronics
Show, is taking place in Las Vegas. As
every year, the consensus from those
attending is that there’s little new to
get excited about. This seems to miss
the point: events like CES conceal the
slow, hard-to predict, drawn-out nature
of innovation and discovery. Trade
events bear little relation to meaningful
change, rather they are showbusiness –
a marketing platform for organisations
that have the relentless drumbeat of
quarterly earnings reports to adhere to.
The use-case is all. Many of the
emerging technologies of today are
seen as disappointing or “not where 
we need them to be”. VR? Consumer
adoption of the technology has been
minimal. Why? Not enough products
that excite people are being built
because the technology is complex
and few developers have the skills to
build products. Machine learning? We’re
a long way off it being used for much
more than pattern recognition. Block-
chain? There are few clear use cases.
This is disappointment based on an
absence of product-fit. However, these
technologies will continue to develop
incrementally, maybe becoming what
we think they might become – or maybe
something else entirely – because of
the bench work and research being
done in universities, laboratories and
companies across the world. The notion
of the maverick individual is one that
the tech world likes to mythologise,
ILLUSTRATION: RAY ORANGES
but the truth is that every “next big
thing” is created on the shoulders of
others. Inter-generational, private,
public progress is the partnership
that will ensure our continued advance.
Greg Williams
Editor
HANDMADE IN ENGLAND
E T T I N G E R .CO.U K
+44 (0)20 8877 1616
EDITED BY
VICTORIA TURK &
GIAN VOLPICELLI

 

Need
muscle?
Try some
real power
dressing
 Ever felt a bit sluggish getting out of a chair, or
tire easily on a hike? What you need is to put on an
extra set of muscles. This is the idea behind Menlo
Park-based startup Seismic, which has developed
a body suit that contains integrated robotics to give
the wearer a subtle strength boost around their
core. Stand up, and the techno-onsie will read your >
PHOTOGRAPHY: CODY PICKENS
 movements and automatically engage
to support your lower back and hips.
Previously known as SuperFlex, The Länsisalmi power
Seismic was originally spun out of the substation in southern
SRI International research institute Finland needed an upgrade
in California, where co-founder and WEARABLE – but rather than just
CEO Rich Mahoney led the robotics TECH: INSIDE installing new equipment, it
team, including working on a DARPA THE SEISMIC got a full makeover from
programme to design lightweight, POWER SUIT architect Bratislav Toskovic,
wearable robotics for military applica- of Helsinki-based Parviainen.
tions. He realised that there could also “The main inspiration was
be a consumer market for a comfortable, electricity, and the visual
mobility-enhancing product. “The big A pack on each element of light,” he says.
insight was that we weren’t innovating thigh contains a “I wanted to convert the
around robotics,” he says. “We were lithium-ion battery concrete structures into
innovating around clothing.” and two artificial, glowing lanterns.” To achieve
The Seismic suit isn’t an exoskeleton; motorised muscles that, he clad the substation’s
it’s not intended to do the muscles’ that can expand three buildings with glass
work for them, but to contribute about and contract. panels and lined them with
15 to 30 per cent of the power required LED lights, which at night
(the actual amount depends on the transform the complex into
S TA RT wearer’s size). It consists of a textile a bright beacon. Behind its  
body suit that contains electric compo-
nents. Discreet, it can be worn alone
or as a base layer. Mahoney sees it These pull on
as adding a new kind of function- a fibre that runs
ality to fashion. You could dress for through the suit.
mobility, he says. “We want people The force is
to get dressed and not think, ‘I’m distributed by
putting something special on.’ Simply, gripping structures
‘I’m just putting my clothes on.’” in the fabric.
Seismic plans to enter the market in
some limited venues by mid-2019. They
haven’t settled on a price, but Mahoney
says it will be in the “bespoke, design-
er-level apparel range”. At this stage,
the suits are tailored to fit the individual, Sensors track
with plans for off-the-shelf sizes. movements,
The company is initially targeting the sending data
baby boomer generation. “As people to a pack at the
age, they begin to lose strength, and base of the spine
that generation has a high premium on containing a
maintaining an active lifestyle,” he says. microprocessor.
Next, Seismic wants to use machine
learning to enable the suit to adapt
to someone’s requirements and
preferences as they wear it. Take the
example of a teacher: perhaps the suit
could adapt to their class schedule
and automatically adjust the level of
support it provides throughout the day,
offering more assistance when they are
standing for long periods of time and
turning off when the school day ends.
Future products could also address
different parts of the body, such as the
shoulders and arms, ankles or knees.
Mahoney says the company has
received a lot of interest for worker
safety applications too, but that it
is currently positioning the suit as a
wellness product: “Your level of mobility
is directly linked to the quality of life you
have.” Victoria Turk myseismic.com
 glass walls, two 400kV
transformers work to
distribute electricity to
800,000 residents in the
cities of Helsinki and Vantaa.
PHOTOGRAPHY: MIKA HUISMAN
As the plant is visible from
a highway, Toskovic decided
it could also be a landmark.
Usually, energy reaches
a substation through
high-tension trunk lines,
Länsisalmi power substation provides power to two Finnish cities and is a landmark for those driving past on a major highway
which run down to the
transformers via a steel
framework “portal”.
“Portals are usually ugly and
boring,” Toskovic says. “But
this location is so exposed:
thousands of people see it
daily.” He replaced the steel
frames with two 47-metre-
tall arches made of
weathering COR-TEN steel,
an alloy beloved of modern
architects for its rusty
appearance. Toskovic says
their orange colour “blends
with its surroundings at any
A spark
of genius
season”. Even better: they
need no further maintenance.
“They are [almost] 50 metres
high. If one had to repaint Inspired by electricity, an
them, it would be a big job.” architect has transformed a
Gian Volpicelli parviainenark.fi dull Finnish substation
 S TA R T
PHOTOGRAPHY: PETER PRATO

In a warehouse in Oakland, California, a small crowd watches Will Roscoe tap a

phone with his thumb. At his feet, a radio-controlled car starts to move around
a racetrack – with no further input from Roscoe. The Frankenvehicle, which has a
camera and electronics zip-tied to its top, is called a Donkey Car. Roscoe is no
AI expert, but his creation uses neural network software similar to that which
Waymo’s street-legal autonomous minivans rely on to perceive the world. The car
learns to drive by watching a human steer the vehicle during demonstration runs.
A civil engineer by training, in 2016 Roscoe ran for a seat on the board of the Bay
The wacky
Area subway system. He pledged to replace trains with self-driving electric buses,
but finished third. Building his own autonomous vehicle seemed a way to show
voters that the technology wasn’t pure fancy. “I wanted
self-racer
to demonstrate it can work at a small scale,” he says.
He met fellow tinkerer Adam Conway, who built the
To stop a rogue vehicle and its autopilot using Google’s TensorFlow Will Roscoe has built a cute radio-
Donkey Car, Roscoe software, and after putting their designs online for others, controlled buggy with a difference:
says, “Just put your Donkey Cars of all shapes and sizes are now racing the Donkey Car can drive itself
foot in front of it” around in Hong Kong, Paris and Melbourne. Tom Simonite using neural network software
 he creator of the internet thinks it’s
time for an update. In September 2018,
Sir Tim Berners-Lee – the father of the
world wide web – launched the startup
Inrupt, co-founded with cybersecurity
entrepreneur John Bruce, with a mission
“to restore rightful ownership of data
back to every web user”.
Since 2015, Berners-Lee (pictured
right) has been working on a new web
infrastructure called Solid, which
rethinks how web apps store and share
S TA RT personal data. Inrupt aims to drive the
development of the Solid platform from
an innovative idea to a viable platform for
businesses and consumers. “My group in
CSAIL [Computer Sciences and Artificial
Intelligence Laboratory] at MIT had
been working on Solid for some years,”
Berners-Lee says. “The initial goal of
Inrupt is to add the energy and resources
of a startup to the open-source efforts
to make the Solid movement happen.”
Over the past three decades, the
web has evolved into something very
different to Berners-Lee’s original vision
of openness, co-operation and creativity.
Most of the data we put online is now
siloed on the servers of companies like
Google, Facebook and Twitter, and used
to sell us as an audience for targeted
advertising. We can download and
delete our online histories, but we still
can’t easily move our data between
services. “Innovation and value creation
are choked by powerful forces whose
focus is primarily on what generates
profit or serves political agendas,”
says John Bruce, who takes the role of
CEO at Inrupt, while Berners-Lee is CTO.
The big idea behind Solid is that
instead of a company storing all your
personal data on its servers, you
would keep it on your own personal
data “pod”, which is located on a Solid
server. You could run your own server
or host it with a provider, much as with
a personal website. You could then give
individual apps permission to read and
write to your pod. When you want to
stop using an app, you just revoke its
access. The data remains on your pod,
and businesses making apps never
have to worry about storing it, deleting
it, or making it easily exportable.
Sir Tim Berners-Lee’s new
mission is to help you take
back control of your data
Inrupt:
the plan
for the
next web
Right: Sir Tim Berners-Lee, whose
Solid web infrastructure could
upend the ownership of user data
As well as funding the development
of Solid and apps for the platform,
Inrupt will host free Solid pods to make
it easier for independent developers
to create new apps. The company is
based in Boston, Massachusetts, and
is backed by the venture capital firm
Glasswing Ventures. It currently has a
staff of more than 20, plus an active open
source development community that
Bruce says numbers in the hundreds.
Bruce and Berners-Lee aren’t waiting
for the current generation of tech giants 
to switch to an open and decentralised
model: Amazon and Facebook are
unlikely to ever give up vast data caches
harvested from billions of users. But
they hope their alternative model will
be adopted by an increasingly privacy-
aware population of web users and
the organisations that wish to cater
to them. “In the web as we envision it,
entirely new businesses, ecosystems
and opportunities will emerge and
thrive, including hosting companies,
application providers, enterprise
consultants, designers and developers,”
Bruce says. “Everyday web users will
find incredible value in new kinds of apps
that are impossible on today’s web.”
The company claims there are 1,200
new Solid community members, and
more than 30 open-source developers
building apps on the platform. The
current roster of Solid apps includes
management apps, contact directory
and messaging tools, and a clutch of
blogging, social and note-taking apps.
“There is no single ‘killer app’,” Bruce
says. “For different people, different
apps will be life-changing.”
For now, Bruce and Berners-Lee aren’t
prepared to say much about how Inrupt
plans to make money, save for that the
company will provide products and
services for businesses and individual
users who want to implement Solid.
As Bruce sees it, the real opportunities
are expected in businesses that have
PHOTOGRAPHY: NADAV KANDER
yet to be invented. “Already, there is a
growing appetite for Solid from potential
businesses and partners who recognise
that Solid can free them from stifling
data silos and create a blank slate for
innovation.” KG Orphanides solid.mit.edu
 From Avatar to Alita:
how CGI got hyper real
he first thing you notice ambitious. “It came down The hair is entirely
about Alita: Battle Angel, to: the Alita script wasn’t CGI, as Salazar’s
the live-action adaptation ready and the Avatar script head was totally
of the manga by Yukito was,” Rodriguez says. covered by her suit
Kishiro, is the titular It was a blessing. Avatar
character’s eyes. The film’s became a stepping stone to
CGI cyborg protagonist getting the performance-
Alita, played by Rosa capture technology ready.
 Salazar via a head-to- “It wasn’t even there when STA RT
toe performance capture we started shooting – we
suit, looks human – except had to fine-tune it over two
for her eyes, which are years,” says Rodriguez.
unsettlingly large, like an As for the mixed response The eyes are key to
anime character made real. to her new face, Salazar the performance –
When they were first says she would have been even the corners
unveiled in a trailer at disappointed if people are fully animated
the end of 2017, audience hadn’t reacted strongly.
reaction was split. Some “The worst thing would
were unnerved by the have been people going,
“uncanny valley” effect. ‘Yes, I’ve seen that before,
“It’s just something we’ve I know what that is.’”
never seen before,” says Stephen Kelly Alita: Battle
director Robert Rodriguez. Angel opens on February 6
“We’ve been seeing anime
and manga eyes since
Astro Boy in the 50s, but
never photo-real.”
Rodriguez, who inherited
the Alita project from
producer James Cameron,
was initially concerned that
Cameron would pressure
him to tone the character
down. “But Jim didn’t even
blink an eye,” he says. “In
fact, he even said, ‘I think
the eyes need to be bigger.
The iris has to be bigger
in order to make it more
emotive, more relatable.’”
Cameron once intended
to direct himself, being
fascinated by the idea
of bringing Alita – a
deadly cyborg rebuilt by
a scientist (Christoph
Waltz) – to life through It took Salazar 90
performance capture. But mins a day to don
he became preoccupied her performance
with something equally capture suit
Systems similar to those that find packages in a warehouse have been deployed to arm the
Royal Navy’s deadly new supercarrier. WIRED inspects the colossal HMS Prince of Wales

High tech on the high seas

In the Rosyth dockyard in Scotland, final works are being the design,” says Vice Admiral Simon
carried out on HMS Prince of Wales, the Royal Navy’s Lister, who is managing director of the
second supercarrier, following the commissioning of Aircraft Carrier Alliance, a partnership
HMS Queen Elizabeth in 2017 (see WIRED 04.17). between industry and the Ministry of
The new ship shares the design of its sister, but with Defence that is responsible for the
a few tweaks to the process from lessons learned the construction of the two ships.
first time around. “We’re not testing the design this time; At 280 metres long and with a
S TA RT we’re testing that we’ve built it completely accurately to displacement of 65,000 tonnes, the  
Queen Elizabeth-class carriers are the
largest warships ever constructed for
the Navy. Building such a large ship,
explains Lister, requires distributing
construction around the country to
manage the throughput of steel. The
carriers were built in parts before
being assembled at Rosyth using the
most powerful crane in Britain, which
is capable of lifting 1,000 tonnes and
is appropriately named Goliath.
The ship is designed specifically
for the Lockheed Martin F-35B fighter
jet. The F-35B is a short-take-off and
vertical-landing aircraft – a STOVL in
military parlance, describing the way it
can get airborne and touch down. This
Weapon delivery informs everything from the ship’s
- “ski jump” runway, which launches
The journey from the aircraft so that its wings are at
magazine to flight the ideal angle for take-off, to the
deck is highly special paint on the flight deck – an
mechanised. A lift aluminium coating that can withstand
takes munitions the intense heat generated by the
from stores deep plane’s vertical landing.
in the ship. They Despite the ship’s size, it requires
are then moved in a relatively small crew – around 700
pallets along tracks people in total – thanks in part to
(pictured above automated systems. One example
right) on platforms is the highly mechanised weapons
called moles. A handling system, a series of tracks,
crane hoists them moles, lifts and cranes that transport
to the preparation Twin peaks rear (pictured right) munitions from the deep magazines
area. The flight - acts primarily as to the preparation area and flight
deck is the final The Prince of an aircraft control deck. Stewart Sykes, flight deck and
PHOTOGRAPHY: BENEDICT REDGROVE

stage. The system
automatically cuts
out in rough seas.
Wales has a twin tower. However, aviation programme manager for the
island design. The both islands can Aircraft Carrier Alliance, compares the
aircraft carrier’s multi-task and system to moving goods in an Amazon
forward island take over the roles warehouse. “Essentially that’s what
houses the bridge of the other in the highly mech is – just with the added
– the command event of “function complexity of installing it on a naval
centre – and the redundancy”. platform,” he says. Victoria Turk
 STA RT

Broadside
-
The cost of the
Prince of Wales
– the seventh
Royal Navy ship
to bear the name
– has proved
controversial.
Originally forecast
at £5.8bn, the
total build cost
of the two Queen
Elizabeth-class
carriers has risen
to £6.2bn. A plan
for the Prince of
Wales to have
catapult-assisted
take-off was
abandoned as
too expensive.
 Action station F-35B – is applied
- over the flight deck,
Under cover of a which is the size
protective tent of three football
(below) a special pitches. The metal
thermal coating crosses recessed
– to resist the into the floor at
intense heat regular intervals
generated by the tether the aircraft
Lockheed Martin so they don’t roll as
the ship negotiates
heavy seas.

Levers of power the demand placed

- on the ship’s prime
Below deck is the movers, which
Prince of Wales’ convert energy into
ship control centre movement. The
(right). The levers demand required is
on the left of the proportional to the
black console are speed of the ship.
the propulsion
BENEDICT REDGROVE

demand regulators.
PHOTOGRAPHY:

These determine
 Below: Alice Potts at the Open Cell biotech workspace in Shepherd’s Bush. Her work harnesses the properties of crystalised human sweat

START 

A quick glance into Alice Potts’ studio reveals

a collection of fashion accessories featuring a
vibrant colour palette and an unusual decorative
feature: crystallised human perspiration.
Potts, 26, is one of six residents at Open Cell, a
biotech workspace in Shepherd’s Bush, London,
which is made of shipping containers and provides
lab space for startups and creatives who bring
together science and fashion. A designer and

PHOTOGRAPHY: NICK WILSON

materials researcher, she was inspired to work
with bodily fluids during a post-gym session, when
she noticed the white crystals that had formed
across her top. “I was like, ‘Oh my god – could
you imagine if this was allowed to grow longer,
instead of rapidly dehydrating?’” she says. low in sodium,” Potts says. She is currently
Her current sweat-collecting regime involves working with personal trainer Francesco Zen to
working with athletes. Each individual is given an explore how combining the consumption of food
item of clothing to exercise and sweat in. Once the at specific times with exercise can affect the
sweat becomes embedded in the material, Potts volume of sweat that the body secretes.
collects any extra liquid using microfibre towels, Although Potts’ practice stresses individualism,
as well as asking participants to scrape it from her goal is to strip down gender, race and diet
clothing and wring it out into a container. “You can divides by focusing on a bodily function that unites
sweat a pint a day from your feet – that’s normal,” us all: “No matter where you come from or who
Potts explains. She then starts her crystallisation you are, we all sweat. It’s something every person
process and re-applies the wrung-out perspiration can relate to.” Arnelle Paterson alicepotts.com
to the still-sweaty garments, where the similarity
in molecular structure allows the crystals to form.
The designer is now exploring how different
applications of sweat can manipulate textiles
beyond mere aesthetics – for example, by
affecting a fabric’s flexibility or rigidity. As a former
tennis player, she is particularly interested in
sportswear innovation. “You could have materials
that are stiff, and then when you sweat, it becomes
more flexible, which allows greater movement
Sweat shops Put away the
deodorant –
Alice potts is
while supporting the body,” she says.
Visualising sweat could also act as a handy
biomarker for the wearer. “You could indicate
are the future an artist
exploring ways
to make human
your health at that point – if you’re dehydrated,
what your diet is like, or if your body is high or of fashion perspiration
beautiful
 London will remain the
VC capital of Europe
Despite Brexit uncertainty, UK tech is booming – but
attracting top talent may be tricky in the long run

 STA RT

he years living in the looming

shadow of Brexit have, against the odds,
been a golden period for UK tech. We’ve
witnessed multibillion-dollar exits –
including Zoopla’s and Farfetch’s – and
VC funding at record highs, with about
£2.6bn deployed in the UK in the first two
quarters of 2018 alone. If the UK finally
leaves the EU, that’s not going to change
– even though Brexit will mean a shift
in emphasis for the sector as a whole.
There are some reasons for optimism.
A technology startup’s success always
depends on three crucial ingredients:
access to capital, access to talent and
access to markets. Post-Brexit Britain
will remain well positioned on all three. Sequoia’s $50m funding of Graphcore to engineers from across Europe to join
Leaving the EU, though, does change Greylock’s investment in my own firm, and contribute to UK startups has been
Britain’s comparative advantages, and Entrepreneur First. The British Business crucial in enabling the UK’s tech boom
will determine what kind of startups Bank – Britain’s state-owned bank tasked over the past few years. The approaching
can thrive in the country’s ecosystem. with providing credit for small and end of freedom of movement for EU
London will remain the VC capital medium businesses – is flush with new citizens is a major blow, and one the
of Europe. According to KPMG, more cash, and has picked up much of the slack tech sector will not escape.
than twice as much venture capital left by the European Investment Fund. Yet UK tech will likely still be able to
was deployed in the UK as in Germany Access to talent will be a thornier attract talent, particularly at the highest
in the third quarter of 2018. London matter. The ability for talented software skill levels. That is for two key reasons.
remains the obvious location for inter-
ILLUSTRATION: JOE WALDRON

national funds seeking a European HQ, as

SoftBank’s presence in the UK testifies.
Since the referendum, top Silicon Valley Matt Clifford is the chief
funds have led large investments in executive and co-founder
globally ambitious UK companies, from of Entrepreneur First

First: the UK’s Tech Nation Visa Scheme
is one of the most generous in the world
for extraordinary individuals – and the
number of available visas has doubled
over the past two years. This is a real
win that the sector needs to defend
and, if possible, extend.
The second reason is Britain’s excep-
tionally strong universities. Times
Higher Education ranks Oxford and
Cambridge as the world’s top two univer-
sities, with Imperial College London
joining them in the top ten. These and
other institutions will continue to
provide the tech industry with world-
class talent, particularly in areas such
as AI. In turn, this means that disruption
STAR T
WIRED TIRED
Open Source Mars Rovers SpotMini
Bartlet Reboot Picard Reboot
DNA-Targeted Poisons Drone Assassinations
Scutoids Frustrums
Bot Psychology Culinary Anthropology
to higher-education institutions is the
biggest hidden Brexit risk for startups:
the sector must ally with universities
to mitigate the worst hits to research
funding and collaboration.
Another risk has less to do with
immigration rules and more to do
with the national mood music. Even if
talented people can get into the country,
does a post-Brexit Britain sound like
somewhere they’ll be welcome? The
UK government has done little to send
a much-needed welcome message; this
EXPIRED
Aibo
Palm Reboot
Steerable Bullets
Prismatoids
Xenobiology
‘The UK’s Tech
Nation Visa Scheme
is one of the most
generous in the world’
means that startups and investors will
have to be louder than ever.
Finally, markets. The UK is leaving the
world’s largest single market, but this
affects tech startups less than many other
companies. Israel, the original “Startup
Nation”, has demonstrated that to
begin life in a small market forces entre-
preneurs to think global from day one.
Importantly, leaving the single market
will have the least impact on the most
ambitious startups. The EU’s regulatory  
harmony has always been somewhat
offset for startups by its linguistic and
cultural diversity. In any case, these
companies place no geographic bounds
on their aspirations. The UK’s prosaic but
fundamental strengths – a favourable
time zone and the English language –
will keep the country attractive as a
springboard to launch a global company.
What does this all mean for the UK’s
comparative advantages? Post-Brexit
Britain will be an excellent place for
startups that need access to abundant,
patient capital, world-leading talent
in areas of cutting-edge research and
large global customer bases. While
many companies fit the bill, the model
is particularly attractive for “deep tech”
startups. These are companies working
with new technologies, such as AI, virtual
reality or synthetic biology. As the
emerging success of UK companies such
as Darktrace, Improbable and Tractable
shows, the UK has strong foundations
in this area. It’s on those foundations
that the whole ecosystem – founders and
VCs, of course, but also the government
and universities – will need to build for
UK tech to continue to prosper.
The period since the referendum
has been one of great uncertainty –
and that’s likely to continue for many
years. Whatever the eventual political
ILLUSTRATION: JOE WALDRON
settlement, if the UK plays to its
strengths, it will be able to not only
save its technology ecosystem, but
also take decisive steps to becoming
the world’s Deep Tech Nation.
STAR T
 Meet the French mathematician appointed by President
Macron to develop France’s innovation strategy
Cédric Villani:
calculating the future
of European AI
 In his office in Paris’s National Assembly, Cédric Villani
opens a parcel: it contains a metallic spider. “Lovely,” he
says, putting it on a shelf, where a collection of spider-shaped
objects sit next to a photo of him with Mark Zuckerberg.
Villani is on a mission. Well, several: the French mathe-
matician, winner of the 2010 Fields Medal – seen as maths’
Nobel Prize – sits as an MP for Emmanuel Macron’s party
La République en Marche, teaches at the University of Lyon,
and is running for the Paris 2020 mayoralty. But the expert
in mathematical analysis, famous for his academic achieve-
ments as well as for the spider-shaped pins on his suits, has
a bigger goal: making France a leader in artificial intelligence.
Appointed by the president to set
out a national AI strategy, in 2018 Villani FR AN CE ’S
published a report, “AI for Humanity”, POLITI CAL
laying out his vision. “We must valorise SCIE NTI ST
our research, define our industrial
priorities, work on the ethical and legal
framework and on AI training,” he says.
Following the report’s publication,
President Macron announced €1.5bn, Three factors
over four years, to implement most of influencing
Villani’s ideas. “I want France to be one mathematician
of the leaders of the AI sector,” Macron Cédric Villani
said in March. “We have the means, and
we will create the conditions.”
Villani identified four sectors to prior-
itise: health, defence, transport and the
environment. He concluded AI can be
used for “common good”, and recom-
mended the creation of open data
platforms for each sector. About 95
per cent of his propositions are being
implemented by the government, Villani
PHOTOGRAPHY: LAURA STEVENS
says; health is the sector in which the creation of the data
platform is most advanced. But he estimates that the number
of AI students must be tripled to answer the sector’s needs.
Research is expected to play a pivotal role in Villani’s plan.
On November 6, 2018, the French minister for Research and
Innovation, Frédérique Vidal, announced the creation of
Left: Cédric Villani, spider enthusiast and the architect of French AI and technology strategy
four “interdisciplinary AI institutes”, or “3IA”, where academics
and industrials will work together on AI projects.
For the 3IA to be a success, on Villani’s advice, the
government is now trying to stem the scientific “brain drain”.
To retain mathematicians, algorithmics experts and statis-
ticians, who often leave low-paying roles for the US or China,
a new law will allow them to take on better-paid consultancy
work. Villani also suggested doubling researchers’ salaries,
but the government turned that down. For Nozha Boujemaa,
research director at the National Institute for Research in
Computer Science and Automation, which will co-ordinate
the 3IA project, this is a problem: “We won’t be competitive
enough,” she says. The €1.5bn budget
1. Villani won the shows France’s limits, too. “One billion
Fields Medal – is less than a regional budget in the US
one of the highest or China,” Boujemaa says.
honours given to Villani knows France can’t compete
mathematicians with Chinese investment, but it’s not
– aged 36. about France, he says: it’s about Europe.
“France will do nothing in the AI sector
2. One of Villani’s without Europe. We need networks of
heroes is Ludwig researchers and institutes throughout
Boltzmann, an Europe, to work with each other’s
Austrian physicist strengths and good practices.” For
who deduced an this reason, Villani finds Brexit “tragic”.
“entropy formula”. “At a moment when we need all
European skills, in a context of harsh
3. He secured his competition worldwide, it is regrettable
seat in Parliament to lose the UK’s remarkable expertise.
by winning It is in France and the UK’s best interest
almost 70 per to keep close links in the AI sector.”
cent of the vote in Villani’s biggest challenge, though, is
his constituency. changing the cultural mindset. He gives
the example of two French ministry
services where an algorithm was tested to improve the
office’s operations. Although its efficacy was proved, one
test was stopped, and Villani expects the other to stop, too,
because people were wary of the changes introduced by AI.
“It’s about cultural adaptation,” he says. “We must convince
everyone to co-operate.” Pauline Bock cedricvillani.org

START
Meat’s new course
Pluripotent stem cells may put slaughter-free, lab-grown flesh on the menu
“Would you eat it?” is a
question Daan Luining
often asks his friends. He
is referring to the “flesh”
his company, Meatable, is
hoping to produce at scale
in the near future: burgers
that look like those sold
in supermarkets, but are, in
fact, entirely lab-grown.
Three years ago, Luining
met Mark Kotter, a
researcher from the
University of Cambridge
who was working on
pluripotent stem cells.
These are cells that are
yet to develop into an
adult cell with a specific
function – such as muscle
tissue – defined by a gene.
A pluripotent stem cell can
be programmed to develop
into a specific adult cell,
but the process can
typically take 50 days, and
has low efficiency rates.
“We established a
technology to completely
control the genes that are
switched on, so that to
get a mature muscle cell,
for instance, only takes
a week,” Kotter says.
Luining saw how this
technology, called OPTi-OX,
could be applied to animal
cells, in order to develop the
adult fat and muscle cells
needed to create burgers.
As pluripotent stem cells
can multiply infinitely, this
could in theory produce
industrial quantities
of meat without the space
needed for livestock.
“Imagine having meat
factories right in the
middle of cities,” says
Luining. “Farming would be
unnecessary: that’s a huge
environmental benefit.”
Meatable, based in the
Hague, expects to grow its
first burger in two and a
half years, and to be ready
to scale the technology
at an industry level in
another three years. That
is because the OPTi-OX
technology has so far been
proven in mice, rats and
humans, but is yet
to be adapted for cows and
other animal cells. Once
it is ready, the company
hopes to sell the meat
at about £15 a kilo. And
it has already received
about £2.7m in a funding
round led by BlueYard
Capital. But the question
remains: would you eat it?
Daphné Leprince-Ringuet
meatable.com
E A R LY A D O P T E R S
WIRED asks three
entrepreneurs
about their
newest product
and plug-in finds.
Adam “The product we’ve
Goodall been trying out
Co-founder, is a Slack plugin
Coconut called HeyTaco!
It’s a simple
application that
lets the team give
each other digital
‘tacos’ to celebrate
awesome work.
We love the way
it helps celebrate
everyone’s efforts,  
highlighting
important work to
the entire team.”
Tessa “I love what Nu
Cook Wardrobe are
Co-founder, trying to do, which
Olio is connecting
people to share
clothes rather
than buy new ones
when they fancy
a change. Like
us, they believe
that the future of
the planet, and of
our communities,
depends upon
us re-learning the
joy of sharing!”
ILLUSTRATION: ISRAEL G VARGAS; NICK D.BURTON
Grace “Glitzbox is Rent
Gould the Runway for
Founder, jewellery. Pay £50 a
SODA month and get the
coolest designer
jewellery delivered.
Each box contains
up to £400 of
jewellery – and if
you decide you want
to keep your Mei-Li
Rose rings or V
Jewellery pendant,
they deduct the
cost from your
card.” Sanjana
Varghese
 W I R E D ’S W E E K LY A N A LY S I S O F

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 The electro-pop innovator
programming emotion
For her first album in eight years, Robyn balanced human
feelings with music from a new suite of digital music tools

START Swedish musician Robyn has earned  

a reputation as one of pop music’s
innovators, with her trademark
genre of electro-pop blending catchy
beats with often heart-rending lyrics.
Nowhere is this more evident than
on her 2018 album Honey, her first in
eight years, which saw her learn how
to use new tools. But Robyn’s tech
credentials stretch well beyond her
records: in 2013, she was awarded
the Stockholm KTH Royal Institute of
Technology’s Great Prize, and in 2015
launched Tekla Festival to encourage
women into technology.
Ahead of a tour, which comes to
London’s Alexandra Palace on April
12 and 13, Robyn spoke to WIRED.

WIRED: What were you setting out to

do when you made Honey?
Robyn: I wasn’t in the happiest place
when I made this album. Getting back
into the studio required me to be soft
and sensual, and just get myself excited
about stuff again, which was counterin-
tuitive to me because I’m a person who
usually pushes through things. I had to
do the opposite, which was just to relax.
It was a wonderful time, actually.

After eight years, how had your You’ve been getting more involved in
approach to making music changed? the production side of music. Have
PHOTOGRAPHY: MARK PECKMEZIAN.

I didn’t know how to make the music that you had to learn new skills to do that?
I wanted to make by myself. I started by Yes. The work I did was about becoming
ILLUSTRATION: LALALIMOLA

working with [British producer] Joseph
Mount. At the same time, I was working
on my own productions or demos, at
least to be able to describe to him and
others what it was that I was thinking.
Robyn: “Technology is the
culture we are in. For me, it’s
never been a nerdy interest”
fluent in it. I’m impatient, so a lot of times
when I sit down with new technology, I
decide to leave it because I don’t like
when it’s keeping me from doing the
things that I want to do. It’s easier for me
to do it with someone else who knows
the technology better than I do. But this
was just me and the software.

Which tools have you been using?

I was using the music program Logic
and then a software synth called Sawer,
which is a remake of an old analog synth.
I used my analog and physical LinnDrum
drum machine, and another controller
which is just a digital controller that you
can use to programme drums with. A
lot of the sounds I’ve used are things
that I’ve collected over the years, but
also sounds that I was able to get from
Christian Falk, my old collaborator [the NEED TO
producer and musician, who died in KNOW THE
2014]. It’s a mix between new and old. L AT E S T
NEWS?
You embrace technology but there’s JUST ASK
a human element to your music, too… AN EMOJI
An interest in technology is still
viewed as something off-centre or as
a counterculture, when it really is the
culture we are in at the moment and When SAM In February 2018, on breaking news
will be more and more as a human race. sees a fire emoji he moved the events, we’ve
For me, it’s never been a nerdy interest. paired with a headquarters had to dig in and
photo of a fire, it to London. The understand the
Tekla Festival in Sweden returns in knows whether programme has importance of
April. What inspired you to start that? you’re enjoying been trained to emojis,” Neufeld
The idea came from a discussion about a cosy fireplace decode several says. “SAM
this at KTH, the University of Technology or witnessing a languages, has that deep
in Sweden, where they asked me to do a terrifying inferno. including slang understanding
seminar. My friend Lina Thomsgård had If it’s the latter, – most recently of how users
heard about this government initiative it will alert the learning regional communicate on
to get women into KTH programmes. relevant parties: variations of places like Twitter.”
I was thinking about these things airlines needing Arabic. Thanks Initially developed
myself. It became a way to create a place to know about to a partnership for the media,
where girls and young women could disruptions, with Snap, SAM the company
just be exposed to things that I hadn’t security firms, Desk can also counts the BBC,
been exposed to when I was their age. and journalists access the visual Associated Press,
looking for a story. data in public Reuters and The
What inspired you to get more SAM is an AI Snapchat stories New York Times
involved i  n technology? program that – including emojis as clients. But
I always asked other people to help me harvests real-time and stickers – and SAM also caters
instead of learning it myself. I think, for eyewitness data use them to train to schools,
a lot of girls, learning it on your own is from social media SAM’s AI. commodity traders
bigger than for boys, because we don’t to detect events. “Social media isn’t and airlines: Aer
have other women showing us how to do Within minutes of a very conventional Lingus uses
it. We’re not included in the boys’ club. the Westminster metadata SAM to monitor
terrorist attack, structure. To get everything –
Outside of music, what technology SAM identified ahead of the media from strikes to
are you most excited about? the crisis solely bad weather –
AI is interesting. It might be something through social that might affect
very different to what we think. It’s media data. flights; it then
interesting how it’s used within health – Former journalist communicates
that is going to really affect people. VT James Neufeld the information
first launched to customers.
Robyn is performing at London’s SAM Desk in Breanna Mroczek
Alexandra Palace on April 12 and 13 2013 in Canada. samdesk.io
START
In an abandoned London
theatre, four screens are
flying perfectly synchronised
around the dancer Zakiya
Wellington, flickering with
graphics and flooding the
stage with light and images.
The action in Bradley G
Munkowitz’s video is the
vindication of Dave Green’s
ten-year mission to combine
flying drones and screens.
Green’s software and
lighting turned stadium
seating at the London
Olympics into the world’s
biggest video display –
Each drone is equipped
with two 0.8mm-thick screens,
made up of 3,060 LEDs
 
but to attach a screen to a
drone, impeding its flight,
was a different challenge.
Drone troupers
“Most drones are used to Lights, special effects and even dance partners
collect information – video have taken to the air for a new form of performance
and photography – but
these are here to distribute
information,” says Bryn
Williams, a co-founder of
Flying Screens with Green.
To achieve this, he equipped
each of the drones with two
0.8mm-thick screens made
up of 3,060 LEDs. Attached
via a special carbon-fibre
frame to a VulcanUAV drone,
PHOTOGRAPHY: ANTONIO PAGANO
they add just 273g overall.
Green envisions the
technology being used for
advertising and special
effects at concerts. It’s
currently too risky to fly
the 7kg drone in front of an
audience without a safety
net, but Green is confident
this will be resolved soon.
WIRED’s hot tip for the
BBC: commission Strictly In Munkowitz’s video, dancer
Come Droning right now. Zakiya Wellington performs
Matt Reynolds resgb.com with four drone companions
 WIRED PARTNERSHIP | SIEMENS

Why the workers of Your next job interview

tomorrow will embrace could be with a bot –
their AI colleagues and that’s a good thing
ILLUSTRATION: BRATISLAV MILENKOVIC

E M P OW E R E D E M PLOYM E N T
TYPOGRAPHY: GIANLUCA ALLA.

From quantum technology to true diversity, global shifts in

technology and society are transforming our professional culture
WIRED PARTNERSHIP | SIEMENS

THE DIGITISED REVOLUTION

SH A PI NG T H E
FU TU R E OF WOR K

The automated future sounds like a scary place for

humans – but with the right approach, we will all benefit

By Janina Kugel, CHRO and Member of the Managing Board at Siemens

The digital future offers great
potential, but needs the right approach
so that all will benefit. It’s not the
structural change alone that makes
the difference – we’ve had industrial
revolutions before and we were pretty
good in dealing with them. What’s new
is the enormous speed of the current
industrial revolution, which is being
fuelled by digitalisation.
We cannot change the speed of the
revolution – so we need to adapt to
it. We must be agile, self-organised
and flexible – organisations need
The current
industrial
revolution is
fuelled by
digitalisation
to give people more ownership and
responsibility for what they are doing.
This is possible even in an industrial
setting, as we were able to demonstrate
at our burner manufacturing facility,
based at the gas turbine factory in
Berlin. Here, traditional hierarchies
were smashed and workers at all levels
were given the ability to self-organise
their production site. Management,
meanwhile, assumed the role of
coaches, trusting the team to make
the right decisions while keeping them
accountable. The result? The burner
manufacturing plant achieved a 400
per cent increase in production volume
– and at half the usual costs.
Another key for success is diversity
– as a global company with almost
380,000 employees, it is one of our
biggest assets. It enhances our
innovative strength and unleashes the
potential of our employees: diverse
teams prove highly capable in adapting
to a changing environment, and thus
contribute directly to our business
success. That’s why we want to make
the most of our people’s diversity with
regard to everything from cultural
background, ethnicity and origin to
sexual orientation and gender identity.
 WIRED PARTNERSHIP | SIEMENS
MICHELE MARCONI
ILLUSTRATION:

We must keep
ourselves up
to date – both
individuals and
organisations

If we fail to include the broadest pool

of talent, we won’t be able to stay fit as
an organisation – and if that happens,
someone else will drive the change.
Diversity is also crucial when
looking at AI. A big risk is that the
people who program algorithms aren’t
aware of their unconscious bias and
that they are working in monocul-
tures. Only diverse teams are capable
of minimising the risk of unconscious
prejudices. That’s why diversity is so
important when it comes to AI.
Without lifelong learning, shaping
the future of work will not be possible.
Unless you retire within the next
12 months, you can’t be sure that
whatever skills you have today will be
sufficient until the end of your career. If
we want to retain our competitiveness
and keep up with future developments,
we must keep ourselves up to date –
each of us individually, but also the
organisations we are working in. That’s
why we are creating a learning organi-
sation. Siemens already spends around
€500 million a year on training and
further education. Despite our best
efforts, we know that we don’t have all
the necessary skills and intelligence
in-house. Which is why we have created
ecosystems that pursue external talent
and actively seek partnerships with
startups all over the world.
Finally, our leadership style needs
to create the necessary conditions for
fostering success – embracing flexi-
bility and trust. If we humans don’t
begin this process, organisations will
never change. siemens.com/careers

Digitalisation will affect every area of human life – it will bring huge
change, but for those who can adapt, there will be huge benefits
WIRED PARTNERSHIP | SIEMENS

RECRUITMENT

DE EPFAKE CANDIDATE
In the next decade, jobseekers and recruiters will pit duelling AIs, avatars and bots against
each other in an effort to automate the application process. But the technology might
also mean that some applicants are too good to be real – and that’s because they aren’t

The average person is expected to
change jobs 12 times in their lifetime,
and the technology industry is already
responding to this demand. Applicant
tracking systems are winnowing out
they should present a clear case as to
why you should be hired.” The company
provides a CV writing service, spending
an hour interviewing its clients to craft
a keyword-optimised resume.
and Ranstad use the service, which
mimics conversations with real-life
recruiters. “Having that human touch
that makes it feel like a personalised
process is important,” says Somani. Up
ILLUSTRATION: BRATISLAV MILENKOVIC

the weakest candidates before
presenting a shortlist to a human.
It means CVs must be machine-
readable and SEO-friendly, says Victoria
McLean of CityCV. “If it isn’t, it won’t
even get in front of a human. CVs are
now personal marketing documents –
Chatbots are also helping companies
save time. Frustrated by the hours
wasted on email correspondence with
potential recruits, Ankit Somani and
Sahil Sahni left their respective jobs at
Google and McKinsey to found Allyo,
an AI recruitment company. G4S, AT&T
to four times the number of candidates
who start an application complete it
when done through Allyo, he claims,
while the administrative burden is
reduced by 20 to 40 per cent. Some
firms hiring for low-skilled jobs use
Allyo for their entire hiring process.

If AI can create an ideal CV for you,
why not let it ace the interview, too?
Elsewhere, Utah-based HireVue has
raised $93 million to date to train its
algorithm to interpret personality
t ra i t s f ro m c a n d i d a te s ’ f a c i a l
movements during video interviews.
Unilever, Goldman Sachs and IBM are
all clients. PepsiCo, Ikea and L’Oréal are
outsourcing recruitment to Robot Vera.
A tool from Russian startup Stafory,
Vera scans job sites for candidates, calls
them up and interviews them via video.
Companies will have to ensure these
powerful algorithms are built without
human biases, in order to draw upon a
diverse talent pool, but there is another
danger to this increased efficiency:
algorithms can be gamed.
Allyo tries to defend against this by
making it difficult to reverse engineer
the process. Every application has a
verified identity attached to it. A person
would have to create hundreds of fake
identities to find out the answers to the
questions that would guarantee them
an interview – something that would
raise a red flag in the system.
AI and chatbots could also be used
by jobseekers – configured to field
interviews and application emails for
you. “By the late 2000s, autocompletion
of online forms became the norm,” says
Somani. “In five to ten years, you’ll see
bot-to-bot conversations.”
In November 2018, newsreader
Zhang Zhao took to his regular spot on
Chinese state news agency Xinhua,
same as usual. Then he began to speak.
In robotic English, the world’s first AI
news reader, Qiu Hao, modelled on
Zhao, got to work. This is an innocent
example of Deepfaking, which is more
broadly used for embarrassing
celebrities, but the job hunting market
could utilise its principles. Startups
such as Los Angeles’ Pinscreen and
Montreal’s Lyrebird are already
working on mimicking your facial
features from photos, and your voice
from short sound files. Pasadena-based
ObEN creates a 3D avatar that can step
in for everyday tasks. Recruiters that
outsource to AI to save time and money,
will be forced to innovate counter-
attacks to identify when candidates
are doing the same. Or, it will be a case
of whomever has the best tech, wins.
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M A N VS M AC H I NE
The AI revolution will work best
when it complements human
skills, and future jobs will rely on
humans utilising unique assets
such as creativity and empathy
There are three myths about the
90% future of work, according to Daniel
Susskind, fellow in economics at
Balliol College and co-author of
Reduction in The Future of the Professions.
hire time The first is the Terminator myth,
Hilton which says machines will displace
introduced people. “They also complement or
video-interview enhance people – like GPS for a cab
monitoring driver,” Susskind explains.
service HireVue, The second is the intelligence
and saw the myth, which says that machines
time it took to have to copy the way humans think
hire employees to outperform us. “Huge increases
plummet. in processing power and data
storage means that machines can
decide if a freckle is cancerous
without knowing anything about
medicine.” says Susskind.
The final myth debunks the lump
of labour fallacy – that improving
technology will create new jobs.
“Machines may be best placed to do
the new tasks,” Susskind points out.
Where machines struggle,
however, is with things we humans
find easy to do with our hands, from
caring to creating, he explains.
“A few decades ago, automatic
56% car-washes were everywhere. Now
it’s groups of people working for a
lower wage washing cars faster and
Want to use better. And until they invent
new interviewing artificial empathy, machines will
tools find it harder to help people.”
9,000 HR Our direction of travel is towards
professionals technological unemployment –
told LinkedIn unless we develop creative skills,
new interviewing from artistic to engineering, that
tools, including AIs can’t yet replicate. “AI doesn’t
AI, are “very” have imagination,” Susskind says.
or “extremely” “We’ve been struggling to grow
important to their the economic pie for thousands of
hiring process. years – and now we have solved it,”
he explains. “The problem now
is how can everyone get a slice?”
WIRED PARTNERSHIP | SIEMENS
AU TOMATION
FOR THE PEOPLE
AI can be used to augment the effectiveness of
human workers – from nudges that rebalance
workloads, to freeing up time for creative thinking
12%
How much
harder happy
people work Robots aren’t coming for your job
Researchers at – they’re actually coming to help. In
the University of the future, work will be augmented,
Warwick revealed with robots, chatbots, artificial intel-
happy employees ligence, virtual and augmented reality
are 12 per cent helping us do our jobs more effectively
more productive and making work more fulfilling.
than less fulfilled Whether your role is in an office or on
colleagues. a factory floor, these technologies will
become as commonplace and integral
to your job as computers are today.
But this doesn’t mean buying a bunch
of VR headsets will save a company
from being left behind. Instead,
emerging technologies should only
be used to address specific problems.
Artificial intelligence won’t run entire
newsrooms, for example, but rather
take on small tasks, such as the Financial
Times’ source-scanning bot that looks
for gender balance in stories. At Disney,
bots are already looking for dead pixels
8.5% on-screen, saving staff time so they can
focus on creative work. “Eventually,
they’ll have hundreds of bots that are
Employee part of an ecosystem of support,” says
productivity Chris Brauer, director of innovation at
boost from the Institute for Management Studies
Wearable at Goldsmiths, University of London.
technologies “That helps them to focus on the
Researchers interesting aspects of their jobs.”
at Goldsmiths, HR departments have moved on
the University from focusing on the innovations
of London, themselves and the potential for
found wearable job losses, to effectively reskilling
devices can boost employees so they can work alongside
productivity by emerging technologies. “It’s evolved
8.5 per cent. fully into a discussion about augmented
workforces, and how to get the most
out of your technology and your people
simultaneously,” says Brauer. Ensuring
the tech solves a problem, rather than
creating a whole host of new ones for
its workforce, requires continuous
experimentation. Rigorous pilots with
key employees not only help predict
the outcome of using AI or VR in the
office, but how it will impact upon staff.
It ensures evidence for such change, but
also helps slow the pace of that change,
so the process doesn’t overwhelm the
workforce. And you might well find a
cutting-edge, overhyped technology
doesn’t actually work better that the
systems you currently have in place.
In short, all companies and their staff
will need to get better at learning and
experimentation. “A great company is
a great university,” says Jian Jun Hu,
chief cybersecurity officer at Siemens
China. Trying new technologies to
build this augmented workforce
will require leadership to guide the
learning, accept some trials won’t work
out, and not fear failure. “We need to
attract more leaders and talents who
keep the curiosity to learn and dare to
try in an agile way, especially with new
or interdisciplinary subjects,” he adds.
Machine learning and automation
will enable internal experiments, too.
HR startup Humu takes the psychology
around change management and nudge
theory – that behavioural change can be
achieved via positive reinforcement –
and applies it using digital notifications.

Your most valued colleague could be an AI – they’ll take on the boring
tasks, so you’ve got more time to focus on what matters
Humu co-founder Jessie Wisdom is
an ex-Googler with a PhD in behavioural
economics, and has spent years working
on projects designed to help people
make better decisions. “Anyone who
has been part of any organisation knows
that change is a big challenge – and even
the best intentions to make work better
are often met with resistance,” she says.
“People don’t tend to like to change
– it’s one of the most fundamental
management challenges.”
To help, Humu uses small, person-
alised recommendations, or “nudges”.
Data is first pulled in from Humu’s
ow n p e rs o n a l i s e d s u r ve ys a n d
combined with existing corporate
data. Algorithms use this to identify
which teams need to work on what, to
achieve a targeted change. This could
range from increasing productivity to
encouraging diversity and inclusivity.
Nudges are then sent out to prompt
‘It’s a discussion about
getting the most out of
technology and people’
ILLUSTRATION: GIACOMO BAGNARA
CHRIS
BRAUER
D I R E C T O R O F I N N O VA T I O N , G O L D S M I T H S
WIRED PARTNERSHIP | SIEMENS
7.2m
Number of jobs
AI will create
behaviour change – an email reminding AI will automate
an overworked manager to go home on 7m jobs over the
time, or a notification in a messaging next 20 years –
app asking a staffer to share their but also create
thoughts on a meeting. 7.2m, PwC says.
Services like this may help managers
discover whether their staff are indeed
unhappy with automation, or enjoying
its potential benefits. “One of the places
where technology can really help is
through automating away the things
that get in the way of people finding
meaning or fulfilment in their job, and
giving them more time to actually focus
on the things that matter for them,”
Wisdom says. “As more and more
of our jobs become automated, the
relationships become really important,
and a lot of what we do is help build
relationships between people.”
The augmented workplace of the
future isn’t just one filled with robots
and VR. It’ll be better for humans, too. $20.4b
2019 forecast
for spending on
AR and VR
IDC predicts a 68
per cent leap in
spending on AR
and VR in 2019,
led mainly by
business uses.
WIRED PARTNERSHIP | SIEMENS

THE FUTURE
OF T H E
WORK PL AC E
Organisations need to plan for a
flexible, collaborative workforce

In the real world, evolution at

work is rarely simple. A change in
hierarchy or a new administrative
system can force a team to spend
months adapting. But what if
your company decides to operate
without physical headquarters, or
implements a policy of working from
home, or swaps desktop computers
for augmented reality headsets?
Companies can prepare their
infrastructure for the future, and
many are already building drone
landing-pads on rooftops and
equipping every meeting room with
collaborative smartboards.
But integral to all these changes
ultimately being positive, are the
people and teams that implement
them. Siemens’ FutureMakers
initiative highlights just that.
Among the 380,000 staff are
mathematicians using artificial
intelligence to detect cancer faster,
engineers helping entire cities adapt
to changing energy demands, and
architects designing our future
networks and interactions. Beyond
the new hardware, collaborative tech
tools and AI assistants, there is one
theme that binds anyone working in
this sphere: flexibility. And not just
for clients – customer-centricity is a
necessity in a competitive
environment – but for employees.
Jobs, working hours, working
locations – anything that impacts
the employee can be flexible and
adaptable. Given a happy employee
works 12 per cent harder, according
to economists at the University of
Warwick, this is not surprising.
Here are three of Siemens’
FutureMakers syncing people and
technologies to make change work. Aleshia Eckard, who is designing people-led spaces

A L E SH I A
EC KH A RD
In a competitive future market, organisations must offer
adaptability to both jobseekers and employees
Office design in the future will not
follow trends. Instead, each business
will build their organisation based on
flexibility and adaptability.
“We’ve seen cubicles and we’ve
seen no walls,” says Aleshia Eckard,
digital excellence architect for
Siemens. “Virtual working has its
pros and cons. The future is tailored
space, because people are different
and they all work differently.
Businesses will conform to people,
not individuals to a work space.”
Personal computing combined
with rises in the cost of prime real
estate made virtual working
attractive to young talent. But it does
not work for everyone. “The best
work environments have been
creative ecosystems that are both
physical and virtual,” say Eckard. “I
love working virtually, but it’s good
to go into an office and share ideas.”
Eckard, a trained architect, is used
to taking a creative and logical
approach to improving systems –
includes the workforce itself and its
physical environment. That
environment, she says, must change
based on what people need. Many
organisations will still have campus-
style HQs – “these will become
grander and community driven” –
but still retain smaller, satellite
ILLUSTRATION: LOUISE POMEROY
campuses. Interactive community
spaces will be important, as will
green spaces, quiet spaces, private
rooms, group spaces for problem
solving, and virtual spaces that are
fitted with the best audiovisual
equipment, enabling colleagues to
read each others’ expressions better.
Flexibility must also extend to
WIRED PARTNERSHIP | SIEMENS
schedules. “Work has to work for
both those a 20-minute walk from
the office, and living an hour away.”
Siemens has partnered with the
Tech Square ATL membership
community to give Siemens
employees access to The Garage, an
800m2 co-working space located
adjacent to Georgia Tech in the heart
of Atlanta’s tech scene. “Siemens
employees will be able to go there,
have a coffee, save on their carbon
footprint and interact with younger
talent, which is great for knowledge
exchange and recruitment.” A
growing population, increasing
traffic and slow progress on mass
transit will impede recruitment. “But
if we can get an office space close to
them and to new transport, we can get
talent faster than other companies.”
Flexibility and adaptability is not just
about employee retention. In a
competitive future, no jobseeker will
settle for anything less than exactly
what they are looking for.
‘ The future is
tailored space,
because people
are different’
ALESHIA
ECKHARD
D I G I TA L E XC E L L E N C E
A R C H I T E C T, S I E M E N S
WIRED PARTNERSHIP | SIEMENS
Rosa Riera is ensuring that Siemens is in a position to recruit top talent
that is more demanding and questioning than ever before
RO SA RI ERA
To boost hiring, innovation and your company’s
future, rethink the employee experience
How do you improve your hiring,
boost innovation, and bring your
company into the future? By totally
reworking the employee experience.
Rosa Riera, vice president employer
branding and social innovation at
Siemens, believes companies should
be employee-first and use digital
technologies to offer a personalised
approach to hiring and employment.
“The thing with many big brands is
that over time there are shifts in the
talent market in terms of what
people want from an employer,” says
Riera. Previously, talent would flock
to a well-known, global brand like
Siemens. “They provided many
elements that people couldn’t get
anywhere else, like working in a
global environment and access to
development opportunities,” she
before explains. “And we benefited
from this for a long time.”
Startup culture has changed that.
Now, top talent wants flexibility, flat
hierarchy and purpose-driven work.
“They don’t associate these things
with big companies,” she says, even if
that’s not accurate. Her own
employer, she notes, offers flexible
working, innovation labs, and
opportunities for personal and
professional growth. To highlight the
diversity of working environments,
cultures, and sites, Siemens even
created short VR documentaries that
show what it’s like to work in other
parts of the organisation.
Top talent also ignores corporate
messages in favour of conversations
with people who work at a company
already. Social media and employer
rating sites such as Glassdoor have
become important sources of
information about an employer.
“People are much more likely to ask
more specific questions before they
start somewhere,” Riera says. At the
core of Riera’s work is the employee
experience, bringing together
culture, technology and the work
environment. “It’s not just an HR
thing,” she says. “It’s our job to think
ahead, and then collaborate with
different departments and functions
to help drive the culture in a way that
enhances the employer brand.” One
focus is diversity, which widens the
talent pool and favours innovative
thinking: “The way we worked in the
past will probably not help us solve
the issues of the future.”
Such change isn’t easy. Ensuring
existing staff are brought along for
the ride is part of the work, Riera
explains. “Dialogue is important,”
she says, adding that Siemens holds
town-hall style meetings, and uses an
internal social network and tools
such as Slack to communicate and
share. Executives and board
members have even taken to social
media: “They share what they’re
working on and what they care
about.” That helps make the
company’s direction clearer to staff,
and also encourages them to speak
up. “It makes it clear that it’s allowed
and desirable to share and talk about
your jobs. The beautiful thing that is
if you focus on people, the chances are
high that talent will react positively.”
‘There’s a shift
in what people
want from
employers’
ROSA RIERA
V I C E P R E S I D E N T, E M P L O Y E R
BRANDING AND SOCIAL
I N N O VA T I O N , S I E M E N S
 WIRED PARTNERSHIP | SIEMENS

PE TER S CHOPF How do you ensure the beer never

runs dry at an event like Oktoberfest?
Embed every keg with a secure
Combining AR with the Internet of Things could empower industrial sensor, connect those sensors to your
workers with real-time data that adapts before their very eyes analytics platform, and the emerging
patterns will allow organisers to
allocate resources based on demand.
This is MindSphere, Siemens’
Internet of Things platform for
industry. Industry will rely on
simulations like these, augmented
reality and big data analytics to
advance and remain competitive,
says Peter Schopf, MindSphere
senior manager in business
development and strategy.
“Holograms will be flying around so
engineers can compare technical
drawings to the real model,
overlapping them to check
differences and make annotations.
Right now, people look up data on
smartphones or tablets – how much
more intuitive would it be if you
could visualise sensor data in AR?”
If all this sounds familiar, that’s
because it’s a use-case Microsoft put
forward with its HoloLens mixed
reality headset back in 2016. Without
an IoT platform easy enough for
companies to use, however, that
future has been just out of reach.
There are obvious efficiency and
cost benefits to working this way –
MindSphere is already being used for
“predictive maintenance”, allowing
engineers to combine data from a
range of locations and sources,
visualise it, and see where faults
might occur. “We need to give
customers the benefit of interacting
seamlessly with the industrial IoT –
AR is key to that,” says Schopf.
Anyone with basic knowledge of
MindSphere has the ability to create
simple graphs and diagrams. But
Siemens and other partners are
producing apps for the open
ecosystem, and Siemens’ acquisition
Peter Schopf, Head of Mid-Market Account Executives for of app-building and testing platform
Siemens‘ IoT platform MindSphere, is building systems that will Mendix, which it bought for $730
enable engineers to combine data and collaborate easily million in October 2018, will speed
this up. The goal is to have a platform
that can easily structure any type of
data, from any machine, for easy
plug-and-play cross-collaborations.
#FutureMakers
Shaping the
future. Today.

medium.com/futuremakers
Ulli Waltinger, Founder & Technology Head of Siemens AI Lab, Siemens Germany
Laying out the
plans for Ford’s
City of Tomorrow
The urban environment has never been so
smart – but our use of its data is dumb. What’s
needed is a fresh approach to the metropolis

How do you move around your city? Most of us

never think about the thousands of data points,
and the hundreds of interactions involved in criss-
crossing a typical urban landscape. Whether it’s
the changing of traffic signals, or the thousands
of lines of computer code controlling trains and
trams, keeping a city moving is a huge challenge.
You only notice the strings keeping everything
together when one snaps and causes traffic snags.
Yet the issues around urban mobility are certain
to become bigger and more urgent in the future.
Cities are expanding. Just over half of the world’s
population lives in a city, according to the UN – a
number expected to rise by 2.5 billion to 66 per cent
of us by 2050. “Villages have grown into towns,
and towns have grown into cities for thousands of
years,” says Tim Stonor of Space Syntax, an archi-

tecture and urban planning company. With that

Urban planners will promote people over vehicles
density of connection, we see plenty of benefits:
“cities are the crucibles of creativity,” he says.
“You get the creation of societies and cultures.”
But as already stretched services are pushed
even further, problems arise. Central among them:
how can cities ensure people and goods can still
get around efficiently – and sustainably?
“A city like London has a population growth
challenge,” explains Tim Schwanen, director of the
Transport Studies unit at the University of Oxford.
It has a rapidly expanding population hurtling
towards nine million, but still relies on outmoded
methods of planning, transport and bureaucracy.
“Google knows more about our high streets than
our planning departments do,” says Euan Mills
of Future Cities Catapult, a think tank focused
on reinventing the world’s cities, and a former
advisor to the Mayor of London. Policy makers,
city planners, transport companies and public
transport providers all collect data of some sort
– but it’s often not good enough quality, and rarely
shared. It also regularly overlooks how populations
actually use their cities. It’s the perfect storm of
lack of time, awareness and resources.
 Hyperloop connections will seamlessly link megacities W I RE D C O N S U LTI N G | F O RD

decisions make our cities smoother experiences.

The company tracked one million kilometres of
vehicle and driver behaviour – enough to drive
around the Earth 20 times – in and around London.
The 500 million data points revealed likely hotspots
for accidents – information that can help city
planners pre-emptively tackle problems.
City planning should involve key stakeholders
– the citizens. “There’s the assumption that this
needs to be provided by big firms,” says Schwanen.
“But you can have more grassroots-driven,
bottom-up organisations that allow decentralised
and informal sharing of ideas to trickle up.”
Whether developing liveable cities in Valencia,
or transforming the last mile in Cologne, Ford are
looking at the problems and bottlenecks in urban
mobility, and how the solutions can benefit us all.
These are issues that town planners call “wicked
problems”, a concept from the 1960s. “It’s where
the way you define the problem can set you on a
trajectory to address it,” says Schwanen.
Which is why Ford’s City of Tomorrow symposium
is so crucial: by bringing together the best minds
from disparate backgrounds, it’s possible to
redefine the problems, to build collaboration
between private and public enterprise, and to
help educate and involve the public at grassroots.
Just as the free flow of a city relies on hundreds
of seamless interactions, so developing those
connections between the key players in the future
mobility of the world’s cities is vital. “Doing things
in a particular way, you get a narrow way of thinking
about what is possible,” says Schwanen. Until now.

To build trust in transformation and to create

the cities we need for the future, it’s crucial to work
together to pool resources and share expertise.
“We have a vision that we call the City of
Tomorrow,” explains Sarah-Jayne Williams, Smart
Mobility Director at Ford’s European arm. “The
details of how that plays out is what we want to
explore.” Ford’s City of Tomorrow symposium
provides a platform to lead the path to the future.
Ford’s series of events, which visited Valencia on
November 5, Cologne on November 28 and London
on December 6, brought together designers, city
planners, policy makers, investors, future mobility
experts and everyday citizens to rethink the city.
“The vision Henry Ford had 100 years ago was,
if you provided people with freedom of movement,
it’d drive the future of progress,” says Williams.
“That model is no longer sustainable.” We can’t Rail and trams will be key to liberating cities of traffic
each drive a car individually, bringing cities to a halt.
ILLUSTRATION: PANDA YOGHURT

“The way we plan cities is surprisingly outdated,”

adds Mills. “When planning departments talk about
digital technology, they mean they use PDFs and ‘Google knows more about
receive emails. Internet-era planning departments our high streets than our urban
should be about data and intelligent analysis.” Ford planning departments do’
is leading the way with helping ensure data-driven - Euan Mills, Future Cities Catapult
S T R E E T H AW K _____ ARC VECTOR

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THE BEST KIT FOR: DRIVING | SURFING | CAMPING | GIGGING & BIKING. Edited by Jeremy White
 GE AR
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Garmin inReach Mini
Weighing a mere 100g, this
matchbox-sized life-saver
offers a guaranteed 100 per
cent global Iridium GPS signal
(with subscription) and two-
way satellite communication,
so it’s easy to stay connected
via SMS, or, if things turn
hairy, send SOS alerts to
the GEOS international
emergency response centre.
The 23mm screen can’t
show much, but will provide
location, compass and way-
points, and can be linked to
the Garmin Earthmate app.
£299 garmin.com
TRACK_
Tile Pro
The Tile Bluetooth tracking
keyring was a roaring
success, not least because
if you double-tapped it your
phone would ring, even on
silent. They’ve made the Pro
infinitely more practical by
boosting the range from 30 to
90 metres and by allowing you
to replace the CR2032 battery
(after around a year’s use).
And if you do lose something,
you can call on Tile’s network
of users, so everyone using
the app within range of your
lost item can look for it, too.
£30 each thetileapp.com
DRIVE_
Chris Digital Co-Driver
Chris’s modus operandi
is a simple but effective
one: to give you, the driver,
as much control over your
smartphone as possible
while you’re on the move,
without you needing to go
near your phone. Controlled
using speech and gestures,
this windscreen-mounted
auto-Echo-Dot-alike (for
want of a better description)
can be used to receive and
reply to messages, make
calls, listen to music and,
of course, follow directions.
£300 chris.com
 
WORDS: CHRIS HASLAM; JEREMY WHITE. PHOTOGRAPHY: SUN LEE
SAFETY_
Zus Smart Tire Monitor
Why let a pothole remind you
of the need to give your tyres
attention, when you can
receive real-time information
on pressure (PSI/kPa/Bar),
slow punctures and potential
problems via a smartphone
app? Supplied with four
lockable sensors that fit
easily on each tyre valve, you
then plug the hub into your
car’s power supply and sync
with the app. Refreshingly, it’s
designed to be easy to switch
between cars, which means
you can pimp your hire car.
$89.99 nonda.co
 Volvo XC40
>
Volvo’s entry into the compact SUV arena has
been a critical success, and rightly so. Not
only does the XC40 have a T5 all-wheel-drive
version with a 247 horsepower 2.0-litre turbo
engine, a fully electric model is coming. An
imminent hybrid model twins the 1.5-litre
three-cylinder engine of the T3 with an
electric motor. Ideal for long journeys, there’s
pilot assist, run-off road protection, cross
traffic alert and a 360-degree camera, plus an
infotainment system with Apple CarPlay and
Android Auto. And this new model comes with
a new model of ownership: “Care by Volvo”,
which works much like a subscription.
From £28,310 volvocars.com
CAR WARS Range Rover Evoque 2019
>
_ ___ _
C O M PA C T The Evoque has been a huge success, so it’s
no surprise the new version has cutting-edge
S U V B AT T L E tech. Fitted with a mild hybrid powertrain,
with a full plug-in hybrid variant coming later,
it features Jaguar Land Rover’s Ground View
system, which removes the visual obstruction
of the bonnet by presenting the driver with a
camera view of the road below the front axle.
Another camera fitted to the rear windscreen
fixes an issue with the old model – you
couldn’t see out the back. The camera sends
HD video to the interior mirror, which can flick
between reflection or digital display, giving
you an unrestricted view of the road behind.
From £31,600 landrover.co.uk
 Smarter energy.
Greater power.
Powerhead 500 Synchronized
The STIGA new Powerhead 500 synchronised adds a smarter way to manage
energy. Two synchronised Lithium-Ion batteries working to create smarter
energy usage, longer life span and even greater power.

Lawnmowers that are fitted with two batteries that work simultaneously with no
need to switch batteries during mowing; this is done automatically utilising power
from both batteries improving energy usage and reducing the ‘wear & tear’ to both
the battery and powerhead.

Within the 500 Series System is a range of handheld garden tools with batteries
that are inter-changeable from tool to tool. A brushcutter, grass trimmer, leaf
blower and hedge trimmer feature within this innovative range, with just basic
maintenance, no carbon emissions, user comfort, lower noise levels and greatly
reduced vibrations the 500 Series sets a new standard in the battery world

SMARTER EVEN LONGER

ENERGY USAGE GREATER POWER LIFE SPAN

Same battery fit’s all HEDGE TRIMMER LEAF BLOWER BRUSHCUTTER GRASS TRIMMER

YOUR GARDEN, YOUR LIFE

www.stigalawnmowers.co.uk/500series
 Play guitar? You likely own separate acoustic and
electrics – and hanker after one that can be both. Fender
believes it has cracked it. The Acoustasonic can not
PHOTOGRAPHY: SUN LEE. WORDS: JEREMY WHITE

only reproduce the sounds of six or seven different

types of acoustic, it can also sound remarkably like a
Fender electric. You can hook up any pedal, including
overdrive, and thanks to some digital wizardry courtesy Boss Katana Air
of the Fishman-designed Acoustic Engine, play heavy The world’s first portable wireless 20W
distortion that’s free from feedback, and mimic a variety guitar amplifier uses a smart, motion-
of axes. It sounds too good to be true, and WIRED was sensing transmitter and runs on a battery.
unconvinced until we tried it, then we became believers. £337 boss.info
£1,649 fender.com

__ __ _ FE ND E R

ACOUS TA SONIC

T ELE C A STE R

  G E AR

The SIRS (“stringed instrument resonance system”) is a special funnel that allows
for greater sound resonance without amplification, despite the guitar’s slim profile
Described by Leica as “inconspicuous, Wireless connection means
lightweight and compact”, this you can transfer images
classically proportioned, elegant via the Leica FOTOS app
and easily accessible camera has a
17MP Four Thirds sensor that cleverly
allows the camera to maintain the
same field-of-view at 16:9, 3:2 and
4:3 aspect ratios. It has a 24-75mm
equivalent F1.7-2.8 Leica DC lens and
all the manual control you need to get
to grips when weaning yourself off
your smartphone’s camera. The D-Lux
also has built-in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth.
£995 uk.leica-camera.com

GEA R

SN A P D E CI SI O N __ __ _ L EIC A D- LUX 7
 COMPUTER_
iPad Pro (2018)
The iPad Pro has been given
a makeover, with a tiny bezel
increasing the size of the
screen without upping the
dimensions, so the 10.5-inch
screen is now 11 inches, while
the 12.9-inch screen has a
smaller casing. The Home
Button is replaced by Face ID
and a series of gesture
controls, the Lightning cable
is now a USB-C, and the Apple
Pencil charges wirelessly
from the iPad’s edge – but it’s
the battery life that makes
this ideal for a road trip.
From £769 apple.com
055
PHOTOGRAPHY: SUN LEE. WORDS: CHRIS HASLAM
DRINK_
Ember travel mug
WIRED has long admired
Ember’s ability to keep our
coffee at the perfect app-
controlled temperature, but
with the launch of this 355ml
travel mug, the thermostatic
control system – that keeps
your cuppa at a temperature
of your choosing between
50 and 62.5°C – makes
much more sense. No more
tepid disappointments while
driving, and thanks to the
360-degree sip-lid design, it
feels like you’re drinking from
a ceramic mug, not plastic.
£159 ember.com
CONNECT_
Nighthawk Mobile Router
With support for up to 20 Wi-
Fi devices on a single wireless
connection, this dual-band
mobile router could keep an
entire minibus happily online.
Combining ultrafast download
speeds up to 1Gbps (upload at
150Mbps max) the Nighthawk
MR1100 can also serve as a
media hub for streaming,
thanks to one Ethernet and
two USB ports for wireless
beaming from microSD or
USB, and it can even offload
seamlessly when you move
from the car to the hotel.
$199 netgear.com
POWER UP_
River Mobile Power Station
Charge it up before you go,
and River’s mobile power
bank (412Wh, 114,000mAh
at 3.6V) will keep all your
tech going for days on end.
For such a compact unit
(25 x 16 x 20.8cm) it can
pump out a mighty 500W
(300AC, 200DC), can be
teamed up with solar panels
and has 11 independent
outputs including AC, 4x
USB, 2x USB-C, 2x DC. Such
comprehensive connections
make it ideal for everything
from laptops to hairdryers.
$499 ecoflow.com

Few things are more enjoyable than sitting
around an open fire as the Sun goes down, but
the pleasure gained from the heat and embers
is often cancelled out when the wind changes
direction, sending wood smoke into your eyes.
Thankfully, BioLite’s app-controlled FirePit
challenges the elements and wins thanks to
its powerful 10,400mAh Li-Ion powered fan that
not only keeps the fire burning at the perfect
temperature for up to 24hrs (assuming you
keep adding logs), but blows the embers,
minimising the smoke created by fresh logs –
and it can also boost your smartphone battery.
£269 bioliteenergy.com
B U R N T O F F E R I N G __ __ _
G E AR BIOLITE FIREPIT
NOISE OFF_
Kube Cooler
Admittedly WIRED would prefer to be on
a different beach if someone else showed
up with this ridiculously powerful 350W
amplifier, 360-degree speaker and 37-litre
cool box combination (585mm x 451mm x
433mm). That’s because Kube is capable
of a deafening 120dB volume – streamed
over Bluetooth or Wi-Fi – and with an
enormous 300,000mAh battery you can
expect it to play, and play, and play, for
20 hours on a single charge, while the
IPX4 rating ensures your electrics stay nice
and safe from unfortunate splashes.
£899 kubesound.com
PROJECT_
Nebula Capsule II
Far smaller than it really has any right to
be, this can-sized, Android-powered,
Wi-Fi-connected 5W Bluetooth speaker
and 720p HD DLP can throw a 100-inch
autofocusing screen on to any surface
– WIRED tried it on a tepee wall after
dark with great results – all controlled
via a smartphone app. Unlike most pico
projectors, the Capsule II manages a
three-hour battery life and better-than-
average sound quality, not to mention
360-degree audio so it projects dialogue in
all directions for a movie-style experience.
$399 anker.com
PHOTOGRAPHY: SUN LEE. WORDS: CHRIS HASLAM
BRILLIANCE_
Biolite Solarhome 620
This is an effortlessly practical off-
grid power solution that, rather handily,
packs down to the size of a shoebox.
The SolarHome 620 consists of a six-Watt
solar panel feeding electricity into a 20-
Wh control box with an LCD display for
monitoring charge levels, which, in turn,
powers three hanging LED lights – each
of them with a surprisingly bright and
gratifying 100-lumen output – plus two
USB ports for power-ups at night. And, as
if all that wasn’t enough to pack in, there’s
also a built-in MP3/FM radio system.
£159.95 bioliteenergy.com
 CASE NOTE _____

R I MO WA ES S EN T I A L L IT E

It has been four decades

since Rimowa transformed
the luxury luggage sector
with their iconic aluminium
trunks, and 19 years since
they did the same thing
with polycarbonate –
and today, Essential Lite
remains one of the toughest
and lightest (2.2kg) wheelie
bags available. With a
37-litre capacity and
four of the smoothest ball-
bearing assisted rolling
wheels, you’ll never again
00 0 fall flat as you stride G EA R
from airport-lounge shag
pile to concourse tiles.
£400 rimowa.com
 While specs currently remain sparse, Harley-Davidson’s updated EV looks a world away from its
first attempt in 2014; only one per cent has made it through to this electric monster. We do know
that it will feature a V-Twin electric motor, over-sized hollow 18-inch wheels, Michelin sport tyres,
adjustable Showa suspension and seven riding modes. Music and GPS will be accessed through
touchscreen and charging will be through most household outlets. £tbc harley-davidson.com

E - B I K E __ __ _

H A R L E Y- D AV I D S O N

LIVEWIRE

G EA R 

The motor is a
55kW, oil-cooled,
longitudinally
mounted electric
 VISION_ WEAR A B LE S _ _ _ _ _
Vuarnet Tom Sunglasses

Inspired by the iconic style of cult TV

hero Magnum, P.I., Tom is a retro pilot-
style acetate frame made with lateral
reinforcements and five-barrel hinges to
reduce the chance of bum breakages.
But it’s the Nightlynx lenses that guarantee
they make it into WIRED’s glovebox, as
they significantly improve contrast and
perception of distance, even in low light.
€230 vuarnet.com
PHOTOGRAPHY: SUN LEE. WORDS: CHRIS HASLAM

TIME_
Seiko Prospex Street Series L AY E R __ __ _ B E L S TA F F / M C L A R E N 8 5 0 .S 0 0 3

A modern reworking of the classic 1975 When it comes to the majority of

Seiko Tuna dive watch, the online-only
Prospex Street Series retains the
substantial 51mm diameter, 200-metre
water resistance and chunky three-
dimensional bezel of the original, but is
now available in navy, green and grey, with
a leather imprint silicone strap. It’s also
powered by Seiko’s in-house solar calibre
PHOTOGRAPHY: XXXXXXXXX
fashion collaborations with automotive
brands, the results often tend to look
a little too Alan Partridge for WIRED’s
tastes, but we do have to admit there’s
an understated, elegant and utterly
considered look to the whole Belstaff
x McLaren partnership. Our pick of the
collection is this modern Harrington-

V157 movement, making it hugely practical.
And there’s no need to be nervous about
lack of sunshine: it can keep perfect time for
up to ten months in total darkness.
$450 seiko.co.uk
style driving jacket in dark shale that’s
made from a three-layer, water-resistant
stretch nylon outer, with heat-sealed
seams and laser-perforated ventilation.
£495 belstaff.co.uk
WIR ED PAR TN ERSHI P | A CC E NTU RE

Want AI? Fix

the data first
Smart algorithms are only as good as
the inputs they receive – data hygiene
is key to programming for success

The last few years have been auspicious

for artificial intelligence, which has been
embraced as a tool for business sectors as
wide ranging as cybersecurity, customer
service and analytics. Data scientists are
now ubiquitous in most industries.
As AI’s influence continues to grow, one
potential pitfall has emerged: the data. The
vast troves of data created by companies
enables machine learning, the technique
whereby algorithms are trained.
However, this data is not always usable,
explains Fernando Lucini, AI lead for
Accenture UK and Ireland. Different kinds

ILLUSTRATION: MAÏTÉ FRANCHI

of data can be scattered throughout a
business, “which presents two questions:
how to get it together, then how to use
it in a way that’s valuable?” Lucini says.
A big issue is the data’s “dirtiness”:
missing information, inconsistencies,
errors. “It’s problematic if you try to use To help businesses, AIs need a clear view of all the data
machine learning on a dataset where some
entries are empty or inconsistent,” Lucini
explains. “You can’t count on this data.”
“Businesses do have a sense of the
value of their data. They have a notion, an Finding that value relies on focused use-cases. “Things
educated instinct, that there are answers go very badly when your effort is open-ended,” Lucini says.
somewhere within it,” Lucini adds. “There In his opinion, one of the key trends we are likely to witness
often are, but they will need data scientists in 2019 is the progressive “industrialisation of AI”.
to work with the data and help realise the Until now, many companies seeking AI capabilities
value. But if the insight is hidden behind have been acting unsystematically. “One or two years have
too many issues within the data, maybe been spent on AI experiments, and many companies feel
they won’t be able to sort it out, making that they haven’t seen the return they might have expected,”
it harder to identify value the next time.” Lucini says. “This is the year things need to change.”
How to proceed? Good data hygiene
would help, but Lucini says companies
don’t often clean and de-silo their data ‘Without strong data
because they don’t see the use in devoting foundations, there’s no AI’
time and resources to it – a catch 22. – Fernando Lucini, Accenture
Research suggests that 79 per cent
of businesses base critical decisions on
data without properly investing in its verifi- AI industrialisation needs a framework to help a company
cation. This is risky: take United Airlines, discover AI’s value; a plan to involve all relevant parts of the
which missed $1bn in revenue – its pricing company; an approach that aids data scientists in getting the
models were built on outdated information. data; and a reliable data structure. “We can dream up many
“Examples like this, as well as instances ways that AI can make a business hugely successful, but
within your business,” are how Lucini says [companies] need to look at their data through a new lens,”
we can convince sceptical executives. Lucini says. “Without strong data foundations, there’s no AI.”
 A R E YO U S I T T I N G
C O M F O R T A B LY ?

Putting your lumbar care on the back seat can

affect both health and productivity, so
sit up and pay attention to our posture guide



Herman Miller
High-Back Cosm £959
hermanmiller.co.uk

EDITED BY
K AT I A M O S K V I T C H
PHOTOGRAPHY: JOSEPH SHIN. ILLUSTRATION: RAMI NEIMI

ENTREPRENEURIAL CULTURE + PRODUC TIVIT Y HACKS + ACCELER ATED LE ARNING


< continued
At 42.3 hours per week, British
office workers labour the longest in
Europe, so your chair is important.
But don’t just think about comfort,
says Stephen Bowden, a chartered
ergonomist at consultancy Morgan
Maxwell: sitting incorrectly can cause
lasting pain. “Musculoskeletal issues
are one of the biggest costs for British
businesses, up there with stress
and depression,” he says. Here are
four office additions that can help.
W OR K 4ME task chair
S MARTER This bold chair designed
by Martin Ballendat
includes an active seating
mechanism, enabling you
to work out core muscles,
such as your pelvic floor.
Sissel SitFit cushion
The SitFit cushion helps
build back musculature,
as well as strengthen the
pelvic floor. The ever-
changing shape ensures
core muscles keep moving.
neck, back or leg
pain can benefit
from alternating
with sitting, says
Knoll Life chair
The Life chair is a sleek,
high-tech take on the
traditional office chair.
The meshed seat pan is
shaped to alleviate key
pressure points in the legs.
Exercise ball
The shifting surface of
an exercise ball is meant
to engage users’ core
abdominal and back
muscles as they strain
to maintain balance.
Chris Stokel-Walker
SE AT SM A R T S
Cuckooz Nest has all the hallmarks of a trendy
coworking space: light and airy, minimalist
PHOTOGRAPHY: DAN BURN-FORTI.
furniture, scatter cushions and Instagram-worthy
ILLUSTRATION: RAMI NEIMI
houseplants. But there are sounds that immediately
mark it out as a different kind of place: a noise of
babies can be heard over the tapping on keyboards.
It’s one of only a handful of coworking spaces
in the UK that not only provide desks, offices and
meeting rooms, but also childcare onsite. Based
in Farringdon, London, Cuckooz Nest offers 21
nursery places to children from newborns to
two-year-olds, alongside 36 desk spaces.  
Despite launching less than a year ago, the
business is already profitable and has a waiting
list, says one of the co-founders, Charlie Rosier. She
launched Cuckooz Nest because she wanted to help
women stay in work. The idea came to her shortly
after she and her business partner Fabienne O’Neill
had started their serviced apartment business
Cuckooz in 2016. Rosier had given birth to her
daughter and wanted to return to work six weeks
later, but could not find suitable childcare, so started
taking her baby to the office. “I didn’t want to give
STANDING up my 15-year career for having a child,” she says.
DESKS A nursery place at Cuckooz Nest costs between
£10.80 and £20 per hour. In London, the average
full-time nursery place is £6.08 per hour, according
People with to the Money Advice Service – a total of £305.92 per
week for a child under two. But traditional nurseries
don’t offer a lot of flexibility – parents can either
get a part-time or a full-time place. A full-time
nanny, meanwhile, costs on average £616 per week,
David Rempel, plus taxes and national insurance. But at Cuckooz,
a professor of members only pay for the hours they use, rather
medicine at the than full-term periods as most nurseries require.
University of For Ilany Oliveira, a mother who runs her own
California. But exporting business, working there has been
benefits of sit- life-changing. Before Cuckooz Nest opened its
stand desks doors in April 2018, Oliveira was struggling to find
are overhyped, childcare due to waiting lists at local nurseries. She
he adds – and worked at home with her husband, so it would have
standing won’t been too disruptive having a nanny, she says. So she
make you found herself trying to work when her baby slept,
more active. usually between 7pm and 2am. “I was exhausted,”
she recalls. Now she uses Cuckooz Next five days a
week – with her daughter playing just metres away.
There are people who come here from as far
away as Bromley and Peckham. And soon, says
O’Neill, Cuckooz Nest will be expanding to two
new locations – so there’s clearly lots of demand
for childcare in coworking spaces.
That’s not surprising, considering the rapid
growth of self-employment in recent years. In
2017, there were some 4.8 million self-employed
 FLEXIBLE PARENTING
W O R K / P L AY
BALANCE
Coworking spaces are cornering a new
market – busy entrepreneurs’ kids
people in the UK. And an estimated 1.91 million UK workers
are freelancers – a 46 per cent increase since 2008. So
why are there only a handful of coworking spaces in the UK?
It’s a tough industry – only 40 per cent of all coworking
spaces are profitable, according to the 2017 Global Coworking
Survey. Opening onsite childcare on top means complying with
additional regulations. To get Ofsted registration, businesses
need to ensure that there’s enough space and that the ratio of
staff to children is correct. They also have to factor in high rent,
insurance and licenses. Finally, they have to strike the balance
between desks and the size of areas dedicated to babies.
Other coworking crèches like Third Door and Entre-
prenursery, also in London, have overcome
these challenges, but Second Home has had
to delay its launch by several months, and is
now planning to open at some point in 2019.
In 2017, Elizabeth Moody-Stuart
shuttered Officrèche, the Brighton-based
coworking crèche she founded six years
earlier. She says it provided a supportive
network for parents, but the margins were
too thin. “Childcare is an expensive add-on
for a coworking space,” she says.
Overall, childcare seems to have failed
to keep pace with the changing world of
work. Nationally, there is a drastic shortage
of places. Childcare costs in England are
among the highest of any developed
country, according to the OECD. The expense
is especially tough for non-salaried workers
with fluctuating work, who do not want
to pay for childcare during quieter periods.
“The whole issue around the childcare
system and provisions is extraordinarily
complicated to navigate,” says Jane van
Zyl, chief executive of Working Families, a
work-life balance charity. Coworking crèches
might be a step in the right direction. “A good
idea is a good idea, and will create better ideas
as it moves forward,” she says. Or perhaps
one solution could be to follow the example
of Huckletree West, a London space with a
family room – but no staff to take care of the
babies. Whatever users’ preferred options,
it seems that childcare will be a growing
opportunity in 2019. Sarah Shearman
Left to right: Fabienne O’Neill, toddler Orla,
and her mum, Charlie Rosier, at Cuckooz Nest

1 STRIDES
‘ W E TA L K A B O U T T H I N G S
W E W O U L D N ’ T TA L K
ABOUT FACE TO FACE’
PETER BROWN
Peter Brown, chief executive
of the advertising agency
Prophecy Unlimited, started
running with clients in Bristol
a year ago. “It’s not for every
client,” he says. “But when
we run, we’ll talk about things
we wouldn’t talk about face to
 face. It’s a different dynamic;
there’s less pressure.”
Brown, a keen cyclist, has
also led colleagues on an
annual Bristol to London ride
for the past few years.
Exercise helps him to unwind.
“What I’ve found good is
having something pretty
extreme to push my body, and
the endorphins I get. It’s a
fantastic release for me. It’s
replaced going to the pub.”
2 together, says Tim Fung,
‘ I T R E A L LY
CHANGES YOUR
PERSPECTIVE’
MIHAELA SMADILO
At the fintech company
Oradian in Zagreb, Croatia,
all one-to-one reviews
happen while walking in the
city. Management meetings
are hikes on nearby Mount
Medvednica, and team
members often walk, bike
ILLUSTRATION: MARLY GALLARDO; RAMI NIEMI
or run together. Mihaela
Smadilo, head of talent and
culture, says taking work
discussions outside of the
boardroom has really helped.
“You’re more direct, more
genuine, more human
almost,” she says. “Three
hours walking in a forest on a
brainstorming session really
changes your perspective
and brings more passion.”
FIVE FIRMS
MAKING
THIS AUTHENTIC LEVEL BUILDS
3 “They all help us connect
‘ W E H AV E S E E N
MORE TEAM SPIRIT
AND ENERGY’
TIM FUNG
Giving every employee two
personal trainer sessions
every week – during working
hours – has brought the
Airtasker team closer
co-founder of the startup
based in Sydney, Australia.
“We have seen more team
spirit and energy, and the
scheme has had a tangible
effect on morale,” he says.
“I’m a firm believer time lost
on exercise is made back and
more in terms of improved
productivity.” Fung himself
tries to run before work
to clear his head because,
he says, “it improves
focus, reduces stress, and
increases motivation”.
4
‘KNOWING EACH OTHER ON
TRUST AND RESPECT’
NIK WHITFIELD
When cyber security firm
Panaseer was started
in 2014 from Nik Whitfield’s
basement in Surrey, the
four founders would finish
work early once a week to go
running. Four years later, and
with a team of 35, the running
group has been joined by
clubs for yoga and climbing.
to each other in different
ways,” says Whitfield. “When
we exercise together, we’re
at our most human – we’re
sweating and pushing our
limits. Knowing each other
on this authentic level builds
trust and respect in a way
that no contrived team-
building session ever could.”
5
‘GETTING YOUR BLOOD
PUMPING GIVES
YOU SO MANY IDEAS’
AMBER WILLIAMSON
Being tired becomes the
norm for an entrepreneur,
according to Amber
Williamson, founder of
London-based Digital Willow.
“You need to figure out how
to squeeze more juice out
of your own battery.” For
Williamson, the answer is a
treadmill desk, which she
uses on a high incline. She
says she’s been able to write
emails, do sales training,
take client calls and interview
people while walking on it,
and describes the benefits
as life-changing. “There’s
something about getting
your blood pumping that
gives you so many ideas.”
 Meet the scientists, practitioners and researchers transforming
the landscape for health providers and patients. Join us for
a one-day symposium of thought-provoking keynotes, engaging
fireside chats and a Test Lab showcase of next-gen health tech.

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H O W I R R AT I O N A L I T Y D E L I V E R S

WORK
0 67 S M AR T ER
ILLUSTRATION: RAMI NIEMI
 PRODUCTIVITY

Q&A
T I M E LY M A N A G E M E N T
Balancing a packed schedule with nurturing a team, Elizabeth Varley
has turned TechHub’s coworking culture into a transatlantic business

W OR K
S M AR TER

Elizabeth Varley: For Elizabeth Varley, productivity isn’t just a virtue – it’s her business. As co-founder
an entrepreneur and CEO of TechHub, she builds coworking spaces to help startups perform at their
whose company best. The firm operates in six cities worldwide, and over the past eight years has supported
operates in six thousands of companies that have collectively raised more than $1bn. Varley is a
cities worldwide high-achiever herself – she sits on boards at both Imperial College London and the Open
Data Institute. With TechHub’s New York opening creating a whole new set of transatlantic
demands on her time, WIRED asks her: how does she fit in so much? Charlie Burton

Q&A

Do you always reply
to an email?
“It’s just not possible to read every
email. Accepting this made a huge
difference to my productivity.”
How do you know when it’s  How do you judge whether to
time to go home? say no to something?
“Email is a really good indicator. When “My friend Amanda told me that I need to
I am reading one, closing it, marking it as think, ‘Would I do that thing tomorrow?’
unread, I’m like: ‘OK, my brain is done.’” And if I think ‘no’ then I should say no.”

KEEP MEETINGS
TO THE POINT
“There are some people on
my team who tend to go
into a lot of detail and
narrative when presenting
data. That’s something I
find challenging, unless it’s
the point of the meeting.
 I like to focus on strategy
and action. We can expand
the conversation if
necessary, but I’m not
a fan of going through
everything just ‘because’.”
PHOTOGRAPHY: SAM BARKER. HAIR & MAKEUP: JESS CHEETHAM.
GIVE YOURSELF
SPACE
“I live on a garden square
and every morning I walk
through the garden to get
ILLUSTRATION: RAMI NIEMI
to the Tube to go to work.
I have a rule I started last
year: I do not look at my
phone in the garden.
It takes me one or two
minutes to walk across it,
not long, but it’s this
moment that’s just for me.
I look around and see the
changing seasons, the
squirrels running around
– and just enjoy it.”
EMBRACE SIRI,
EMBRACE ALARMS
“I had never used Siri until
I saw a friend go ‘Set alarm,
8am’ – and I was like, ‘Oh,
that’s so useful!’ Manually
it takes about seven
presses to get there. If it’s
something urgent, I’ll set
an alarm rather than a
reminder, as you can still
put text against an alarm.
I do that because I have to
actively turn it off.”
PRODUCTIVITY
A D AY AT H O M E
IS VALUABLE
“I work from home on
a Wednesday every week.
I get up, I don’t have to
travel anywhere, I don’t
have to get dressed, I don’t
have to worry about what
my hair looks like, or any
of that external stuff that
doesn’t really matter to
your job but still takes time
and effort, and I sit down
with my laptop. Everybody
in my team knows that
that’s the day their inboxes
will fill up with things I
need to delegate or send
on. I also use that day for
bigger things I find much
harder to get done if I’m
having to stop every now
and again for a meeting.”
‘I did, at one
time, have an
Action Required
folder that I’d
p ut emails in.
W h at I realised
is that, for me, it
was a case
of out of sight,
out of mind’
HAVE A ‘ONE
TOUCH’ POLICY
“I have a copy of David
Allen’s Getting Things
Done. Ironically, I never
finished it, but I try to
apply the idea of a piece
of paper not being in your
hand more than once
to emails: if it’s quick to
answer, I answer it
immediately; if it needs
to go to someone else,
it gets sent immediately.”
WAKING UP TO THE
WORKING WEEK
“I tend to group my
meetings into Tuesdays
and Thursdays. On
Mondays I might still have
meetings, but they’ll tend
to be internal meetings,
so that I’m around for the
team. Fridays are wild-card
day. But whatever the day,
I wake up at around 6am.
People often wonder how
I do it – but really I’m
just a morning person.”
GET YOUR TEAM
BEHIND YOU
“I certainly made mistakes
when learning to be a
leader. I had to recognise
that other people are not
motivated like me – and
they don’t necessarily
know that they’re doing
a good job unless you’re
explicit about saying:
‘I think you’re doing a really
good job.’ So being
more proactive about
verbalising those things
has made a massive
difference to the team.”
KEEP A ROLLING
TO-DO LIST
“I did, at one time, have an
Action Required folder
that I’d put emails in. What
I realised is that, for me, it
was a case of ‘out of sight,
out of mind’. So I keep
emails about things that
I need to address in my
inbox. Those messages can
easily get buried, so I use
a text file to make a note of
everything I need to do.”

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STORIES
LO N G - F O R M

“I want to give you a gift. Invest $100 billion in my fund; I give you $1 trillion.” Masayoshi Son p72
 João Medeiros

Silicon Valley VCs have always invested in startups that disrupt

entire industries. But what happens if the disruptors are disrupted?
Led by the charismatic Masayoshi Son, Japanese conglomerate
SoftBank’s Vision Fund is taking over tech, one company at a time
Masayoshi Son, in the
Tokyo Shiodome Building,
SoftBank’s global HQ
 $117.5 million mansion in Woodside, California. Most describe 
the legendary investor – known as Masa – as soft-spoken, a
man with a modest bearing and a prescient vision of the future:
a reputation substantiated by his achievements.
In the 1970s, Son emigrated to America to study. At the time,
he had only a rudimentary knowledge of English, and made
his first million by importing Japanese arcade games such as
Space Invaders. It was Son who, in 1996, offered budding
entrepreneur Jerry Yang, then CEO of a struggling startup
called Yahoo!, $100m in investment. His insight paid off.
By 2000, Yahoo! had become the dominant web search
engine in the pre-crash era of the internet.
That was the year Son met a young Chinese teacher
and founder of an e-commerce firm called Alibaba. He
told Jack Ma to accept $20m in investment, with the

SPLASH NEWS. PREVIOUS SPREAD:

PHOTOGRAPHY: BENEDICT EVANS.
promise that he would transform Ma’s company into the

RYAN PFLUGER / AUGUST

next Yahoo! Today, when Son makes a new investment,
he sometimes tells founders that they too can be as big
as Alibaba, as big as one of the biggest companies in the
world. “In 2000, he already knew that China was going to
be big so he just decided to invest,” Eugene Izhikevich, CEO
of the AI startup Brain, says. “After the dot.com bubble
collapse, he was investing in China. You had to drive on a
dirt road between Hong Kong and Shenzhen. He has a gift
of seeing things before they become reality. What’s obvious
to him becomes, ten years later, obvious to everyone else.”
At the event in Tokyo, Son proceeded to introduce CEOs to
the stage. First, he welcomed the founder of robotics company
Boston Dynamics, Marc Raibert, a man who wants to change
the morning of July 20, 2017, at the luxurious Prince Park Tower
hotel in Tokyo, Masayoshi Son emerged on stage in front of
a packed conference hall, his diminutive silhouette backlit
by bright white lights. Son, the CEO of Japanese internet,
energy and financial conglomerate SoftBank Group, was
dressed simply, as is his habit, in a grey suit and a striped shirt.
He smiled and introduced himself in Japanese. R ADICAL INVESTING:
Son is known for his fanciful analogies and long speeches. In SoftBank’s less
2010, his talk about his “300-year plan for the future” opened well-known ventures
with a reflection on the nature of sorrow, with Son asking
rhetorically, “What is the saddest thing in life? What gives
you utmost happiness?” In 2016, he equated the Internet of Futuristic cameras such
Things (IoT) to the Cambrian era’s explosion of life, comparing as the pocket-sized L16 –
the evolutionary advantage conferred to the first species with which, at a price of $1,950,
eyes to the combination of sensors and AI enabled by the IoT. uses 16 lenses to capture
Addressing hundreds of technologists and entrepre- 52-megapixel photos –
neurs, he compared SoftBank to the gentry of the Industrial put Dave Grannan and
Revolution, a privileged class that invested in technology Rajiv Laroia’s startup Vivek Ramaswamy’s Swiss
and science for the common good. Two months earlier, on SoftBank’s radar. It startup buys experimental
SoftBank had launched a $100 billion investment arm, views Light’s technology, drugs that have been
the Vision Fund – the biggest tech fund in history. In Son’s which uses software to dropped from tests by large
metaphor, the Vision Fund was the gentry of the information combine images from pharmaceutical firms.
revolution. “I really don’t want to go to sleep,” he said. multiple lenses into one Its subsidiary, Datavant,
“I don’t want to waste time. These are very exciting times.” high-quality image, as uses AI to aggregate and
Many of the CEOs in the audience that day were recipients a potential replacement analyse healthcare data
of the fund’s investment. Without exception, they had all met for laser-based sensors and accelerate clinical
Son privately, either in his office in Shiodome, Tokyo, or in his in self-driving cars. trials. Put all that data
together, says SoftBank
partner Akshay Naheta,
and you “create a smart
brain that can be a better
predictor of the probability
of success in a clinic trial.”

Left: Masayoshi Son addresses

entrepreneurs in 2017
Right: Helmy Eltoukhy, chief
executive of Guardant Health
the world by building robots with biomechanical abilities
superior to those of humans. (SoftBank bought the company
from Alphabet for an undisclosed sum.) Raibert brought with
him Spot Mini, a four-legged robot that promptly started
demonstrating its locomotor skills. “Masa, I think you may
have to back up because you’re in the way,” Raibert warned Son.
“We don’t have it detecting people yet.” Raibert finished by
stating his belief that “robots will be bigger than the internet”,
and thanked SoftBank for backing him up. Son thanked
him in return and said: “We’re going to change the world
together. We’re going to put lots of AI into robots.”
Next was Greg Wyler, founder of OneWeb, who pointed out
that, for all the talk about a hyperconnected future, the reality
is that 54 per cent of the planet had no access to the internet.
Jean Liu, president
of DiDi. SoftBank and
DiDi have partnered
to launch a taxi-hailing
service in Japan
He detailed his plan to deploy 900 non-geostationary satellites 
that would ensure the remotest corners of the world would
have access to the internet by 2027. As he finished, Wyler
thanked SoftBank for its support. “We’re going to change the
world, we’re going to connect everybody into this internet,”
Son responded as he accompanied him off stage.
Artificial intelligence – and its accessory components of
ubiquitous data, high-speed connections and autonomous
robots – was the common denominator between the speakers
that day: Helmy Eltoukhy, chief executive of Guardant Health,
wanted to conquer cancer with data; Matt Barnard, founder
of indoor farming platform Plenty, was using machine
learning to grow plants in an optimised environment; and
Bill Huang, the entrepreneur behind startup Cloud Minds,
 wanted to build the world’s first cloud-based robot. “All of
a sudden we could help guide a blind person with sensors,”
he proclaimed. “We can replace guide dogs!”
Before the final talks, Son took to the stage again and
reminisced: “When I was 17 years old, the very first time
PHOTOGRAPHY: TRUNK XU
I saw a photo of a microprocessor made me cry. I was
overwhelmed.” He then introduced Simon Segars, the CEO
of British chip-design firm Arm Holdings. “Our first processors
were the size of a shirt button,” Segars began. “Now we can
deliver thousands of times more processing power with a chip
the size of a pinhead.” Arm microprocessors were being used
in robotic surgery, autonomous vehicles and smart cameras,
but the AI future would be unrealistic – too power-hungry and
beset by time lags – if all that data had to be sent to the cloud
for processing and then back. “If every person with an Android
does three minutes of voice recognition a day, Google would
have to double their data centres,” Segars said. The next gener-
ation of microprocessors would have to incorporate AI and
process data on the sensor itself. “We can’t do it on our own,”
he told the audience. “We have to work together in partnership
with other companies to deploy these technologies.”
At the end of the talk, Son shook Segars’ hand. He said that
Arm is indispensable not just to SoftBank, but to the whole
of humankind. “And now they are a member of our family,”
Son continued, turning to the crowd.“If we can join forces,
we can be the gentry of this new generation, making the future
a better place to live.” He then bowed and left the stage.
Son has obsessively been trying to make SoftBank the
world’s biggest company since the day he founded it in 1981,
as a PC software distributor (SoftBank stands for Bank of
Software) – the day when he, a 24-year old entrepreneur, stood
on a crate in front of his two employees and excitedly promised
that one day they would be the greatest in the world. Those
employees quit a few days later, but Son, now 61, relentlessly
pursued his ambition, his “300-year vision”: a technology
revolution that will ultimately culminate in the singularity,
a point in history where AI supersedes human intelligence
and redefines every single industry in the global economy.
In that version of the future, SoftBank won’t be the next
Google, the next Apple, or the next Microsoft – Son doesn’t
believe that one brand or one business model could ever be
capable of delivering the singularity. What will do so is what
Son calls the “cluster of number ones” strategy: a SoftBank-led
ecosystem of AI companies, spanning all industries from
healthcare to transportation, from ride-hailing to robotics, a
diversity that underpins the Vision Fund’s investment portfolio.
“We want to form a coalition of like-minded comrade entre-
preneurs,” Son told the audience at the 2017 conference.
“A revolution can never be realised with the power of one.” And
at the centre of that ecosystem is the company that designs
the small, low-power processors present in 95 per cent of all
smartphones, not to mention most smart speakers, health
trackers, drones and TVs: Arm Holdings.
Son became familiar with Segars in 2006, when he first
met the then CEO of Arm, Warren East, and Segars was one of
the firm’s first employees. At the time, Arm already enjoyed a
dominant stake in the nascent mobile market. This fact alone
impressed Son. He knew that mobiles would soon outperform
PCs, and as a result the internet’s centre of gravity would move
from desktops to the smartphone. Son envisaged that the
low-power, high-processing architecture of the Arm micro-
chips would be the centre of the future digital economy.
That insight was behind SoftBank’s acquisition of Vodafone
Japan, a struggling mobile carrier beset by connectivity
issues and unfashionable handsets, a few weeks prior to his
meeting with the Arm executives. SoftBank’s board had been
sceptical about the acquisition, but Son was adamant. Besides,
he had a strategic advantage. Prior to the acquisition, Son
had travelled to California to meet Steve Jobs. He brought
with him a hand-drawn sketch of a smartphone and showed
it to the Apple CEO. (“It looked like a toad with the battery
stuck out,” Son said in a 2016 interview with The Nikkei.) Jobs
hated the ugly sketch but he told Son that his intuition was
right. Jobs had been developing the first prototypes of the
iPhone. Son left from the meeting with a commitment that,
in case the Vodafone acquisition went ahead, he would be
granted an exclusive deal to distribute the iPhone in Japan.
Segars and Son kept in contact, meeting a couple more
times in 2006, then again in 2014 and 2015. By the time Segars
replaced East as chief executive in 2013, Arm – just as Son
predicted – had consolidated its marketshare in the chip
industry, licensing its product to Apple, Samsung, Nvidia and
Qualcomm. And as Son determined, Vodafone Japan (now
SoftBank Mobile) had become one of Japan’s leading mobile
companies – thanks to its exclusivity deal with Apple’s iPhone.
In June 2016, Segars met Son for dinner at the latter’s
mansion in California. Segars would later describe it as the
most important job interview of his life. He just didn’t know
it at the time. During that meeting, Segars shared with Son
the dilemma that he was facing at Arm – but noted that it also
presented multiple huge opportunities. With the smartphone
market saturated and growth margins reduced, Arm would
have to significantly lower profit margins in order to make
long-term investments in areas such as AI, sensors, 5G and
autonomous vehicles. “We had to have tough conversations
with our stakeholders,” Segars says. “I remember being asked
why all our margins were going down, and explaining that
we’re investing in the long-term opportunities. I still vividly
remember the look of shock on one guy’s face.”
A few days after their meeting, Son called Segars: “I need
to speak to your chairman as soon as I can.” “I’m sorry, It’s
not going to happen,” Segars replied. Arm’s chairman, Stuart
Chambers, was holidaying on a yacht in the Mediterranean.
But Son insisted: “No, no, no. You’ve got to make this happen.
I am going to fly you out. Get into the nearest port, I will fly
you there and I will fly out – and we will have this meeting.”
They met at The Pineapple, a seafood restaurant on the
marina in Marmaris, on the Turkish riviera. Son had booked
out every table – when Segars and Chambers arrived,
there was no one inside apart from the waiters. When Son
arrived, he sat down and told the British executives that he
wanted to buy Arm, and made them a series of promises:
The India-based digital A German online car dealer
wallet startup exceeds founded by Hakan Koç and
450 million transactions Christian Bertermann,
a month for more than it has more than 50,000
30 million customers. partner dealers across 30
“Most UK challenger countries, selling more
banks have single-digit than 40,000 cars every
million customers,” says month. “Few people can
SoftBank partner Munish actually move cars very
Varma. Paytm has recently efficiently from, let’s say,
partnered with Yahoo! France to Romania,” says
Japan to overhaul the SoftBank partner Akshay
latter’s payment system, Naheta. “They’ve got the
and launched a new logistics figured out and
service called PayPay. now have a massive brand.”
the company would remain an independent subsidiary of
Softbank; he wouldn’t interfere in the day-to-day management
of Arm; and the company would be allowed to invest all the
profits into research and development.
“I was trying to play it as cool as I possibly could,” Segars
recalls. “We listened and you do what you’re supposed to
do, which is not agree to anything, say as little as possible.”
Segars and Chambers returned to Cambridge and relayed
the offer to the Arm board. In a week, a price was agreed; due
diligence was concluded in just two weeks; the whole process
took ten weeks. “To acquire a FTSE 100 company in that short
period of time was breathtaking,” says Ian Houghton, the
vice-president of investor relations for Arm. Rene Haas, the
president of Arm’s Intellectual Property Group agrees: “These
processes can drag on for years, but this was crazy fast. They
were like, ‘Let’s go, let’s go, let’s go. Move this thing.’ It went
literally at the speed of light. I don’t think physics would’ve
allowed it to go any faster in terms of regulatory laws that had
to take place. It went down about as fast as it can possibly go.”
One Sunday, Arm’s executive committee, which up to that
point had not been privy to the ongoing negotiations, received
a text message from Segars convening a meeting that evening.
“I did what Simon told me not to do and I texted another
member of the exec committee who was due at the meeting,”
says Haas. “We were all like, ‘Simon is resigning? We had no
idea.’” That evening the Arm executives met in the company
boardroom. As well as beer and crisps, Segars served up a
revelation. “The cat is out of the bag,” he told them. “Tomorrow
it will be formally announced that SoftBank has bought Arm.”
To many of those in the room, the announcement made
no sense. Why would SoftBank, a Japanese telco, buy Arm, a
chip IP licensing firm? “I was thinking: who’s this Masa guy?”
Haas recalls. “What is he about? Does he really understand Right: Stewart
what we do? I went home and googled SoftBank and Masa.” Butterfield,
On Monday, 18 July, 2016, Son started the day with an co-founder of
early meeting with then British Chancellor of the Exchequer, Slack, in which
George Osborne. Following the Brexit referendum the SoftBank took
month before, the government was apprehensive about a $250m stake
a foreign takeover of what was the UK’s most valuable
technology company. Son agreed a post-offer undertaking
– a series of legally binding promises to the UK’s takeover
panel that, in the next five years, SoftBank would double
the headcount and keep the headquarters in Cambridge.
That morning, the announcement of the acquisition was
made: Arm had been bought by SoftBank for the price of £17
a share – £24 billion in total. Hermann Hauser, who had been
A Californian construction Founded in 2013 by Ritesh
company set up by Michael Agarwal when he was 19,
Marks, Fritz Wolff and this is an India-based
Jim Davidson, it covers hospitality startup. In the
every step from design second half of 2017, Oyo
to assembly, building Home was launched: an
features off site that Airbnb-type marketplace
are then put together on for short-term managed
site. The goal is complete rentals that operates
involved in the early days of Arm and is regarded 
as one of the UK’s most influential entrepreneurs,
told the BBC it was a “sad day” for British tech.
That afternoon, Son travelled to Cambridge to
meet the members of Arm’s executive committee.
“He was beaming like a kid who just got a new toy,”
Haas remembers. “He was saying, ‘This is the most
exciting day of my life. I have been watching this
company for 30 years. I’ve just been so impressed
with everything the company’s done.’”
A month later, Arm’s executive team travelled
to San Carlos, California, to meet Son and their
counterparts at SoftBank International. The
British kicked off the meeting with a presentation
about revenue plans and forecasts for the next
four quarters. “He couldn’t be less interested,”
Haas says. “He was playing on his iPad.” However,
when they started talking about the vision for the
company, Son grew enthusiastic and he shared
his own 300-year vision. By 2035 there will be a
trillion connected devices, he said – a vast Internet
of Things of autonomous vehicles, smart robots and
artificially intelligent sensors, and Arm would be the
company behind all these devices. “He was literally
showing revenue charts and numbers out to 2035,”
Haas says. “I remember thinking that very first time,
‘Is this theatrics?’ But now I realise he just thinks
in a really big way. And you start thinking that if
you can possibly pull all this off, it’s actually crazy.”
The acquisition of Arm was Europe’s biggest ever
technology deal. It also marked the moment that
many people in Britain, including business and
technology insiders, had first heard of SoftBank.
That this relatively unknown Japanese telco was
in fact a heavyweight global investor came as a
revelation to most, despite its run of big-ticket
purchases. In 2013, SoftBank acquired US telco
Sprint for $22.2 billion, and Finnish games
developer Supercell for $1.5 billion. In 2014, it
had launched an investment outpost in California
– a precursor to the Vision Fund called SoftBank
International, which had made early investments
in companies such as ride-sharing startups DiDi
in China and Ola Cabs in India, and Tokopedia, an
Indonesian e-commerce company that currently
has 80 million users. “We were a bit under the
radar,” David Thévenon, a partner at SoftBank,
says. “People were always confused by the name
SoftBank. ‘Are you a bank? Are you a mobile
operator?’ We had to keep explaining that we had
been doing international investments for years.”
And once SoftBank was finally a recognisable
name there was a new complication: it needed more
money to keep investing. Finding a solution for that
problem was the remit of a former Deutsche Bank
debt trader by the name of Rajeev Misra.
Misra grew up in New Delhi. In 1981, he enrolled at
the University of Pennsylvania to study mechanical
PHOTOGRAPHY: F. SCOTT SCHAFER

vertical integration of all
the steps in construction
to allow a price guarantee
early in the process. It is
in discussions with firms
like Plenty and WeWork.
in leisure destinations
across India, including
Pondicherry, Shimla
and Goa. Today, it has
hotels in the UK, China,
Indonesia and Singapore.
engineering and computer science. He then worked
at Los Alamos designing satellites, and on software
simulations at a Philadelphia-based startup called
Reality Technologies, before returning to business
school. Misra met Son in 2002, when he was global
head of credit, emerging markets at Deutsche Bank.
 0 00
PHOTOGRAPHY: XXXXXXXXX
He lent money to SoftBank and then helped it to structure 080
the complex takeover of Vodafone Japan. They re-connected
eight years later at a wedding in the summer of 2014. Alibaba CEO Eugene Izhikevich Founded in 2010 in San
– the company in which Son had invested $20m in 2010 – had is developing brains for Francisco, Mapbox’s online
recently pulled off the largest IPO in history. The windfall robots. His first product map customisation is
allowed SoftBank to expand globally, and Son wanted Misra allows cleaning machines now used by websites and
to work for him again. “I didn’t know exactly what I was going to navigate an indoor apps including Facebook,
to do, but it sounded exciting,” Misra recalls. environment by avoiding Snapchat, The Weather
To buy the British company, SoftBank was forced to sell obstacles. Brain has now Channel and National
shares in Alibaba and Supercell; the whole deal pushed the signed a deal with Walmart. Geographic. Mapbox
Japanese company’s debt to $105 billion. “We wanted to “Take cleaning machines: takes data from open
make investments in the AI revolution that was coming, they could be robots if you sources such as Nasa,
and in all these companies going to disrupt every industry could put a brain inside and proprietary ones such
on the planet,” Misra says. “Financial services, cars, hotels, them,” he says. “Instead, as DigitalGlobe, as well
office space, residential brokerage, you name it. We felt we we use people to push, to as from its own users to
were restricted because we spend a lot of money. We said, pull, which is not the best refine its maps. SoftBank
let’s raise money. Let’s become the biggest investment use of human intelligence.” invested $164m in 2017.
fund on the planet.” Masa called it the Vision Fund.
The investment hypothesis underpinning the Vision Fund
centres around scale: a winner-takes-all strategy. They
targeted companies with 50 to 80 per cent market share,
and over-invested to enable these companies to grow fast that year, Son told Bin Salman: “I want to give you a Masa
and globally. “That’s something I learned from Masa,” Misra gift, the Tokyo gift, a $1 trillion gift.” Bin Salman responded:
says. “Is it more important to grow fast or to be efficient? “OK, now it’s interesting.” Son replied: “Here’s how I can
Efficient means getting your costs right and your profits give you a $1 trillion gift: you invest $100 billion in my fund,
right. It’s not about counting the number of dollars that you I give you a trillion.” Son left the meeting with a non-binding
spend on stationery that’s important, and building step by commitment of $45 billion over the next five years.
step in the US or in India. Our view is that companies need Six weeks later, the two men met again in Riyadh, the Saudi
to scale first. Once you scale, you’ll get everything else right. capital. Son visited Aramco, the state oil company, and spent
The global barriers are coming down, so if you don’t become time with the executives of the Saudi sovereign wealth fund.
global fast, someone else will do it.” By then Apple, Qualcomm, Foxconn, Sharp and Abu Dhabi’s
And for that, of course, they were going to need capital – Mubadala had also committed a further $20 billion, and
and lots of it. Initially, the fund was going to start with $30 SoftBank added $28 billion from its own balance sheet. A
billion –a huge sum, but not unheard of among global funds. signing ceremony in Riyadh was held in May 2017 to coincide
That was until Masa decided that $100 billion would be better. with Donald Trump’s first overseas trip as US president – and
Misra and Son put together a presentation that showcased the $100 billion Vision Fund was officially launched.
the fund’s investment track record – it’s portfolio at the time SoftBank, which had never managed third-party money at
already included Arm, Sprint, SoftBank Mobile, Alibaba and this scale and had never launched a regulated fund, now owned
Yahoo! Japan – and honed their sales pitch. In 2016, between the biggest investment fund in history, equal to all the money
September and December, they travelled the world, meeting raised by US VCs in the previous 30 months. The fund’s CEO,
companies in the US, pension funds, sovereign wealth funds Rajeev Misra, was under pressure. “We now had fiduciary
in Asia and the Middle East. Though politely received, their responsibility to all these companies, to our partners, to the
proposal was mostly met with disbelief, with $100 billion for people of Saudi Arabia. And did we get the first call for someone
a single investment fund being viewed as a totally unrealistic looking for capital two years ago?” Misra recalls. “No.”
sum to attempt to raise, regardless of ambition.
However, in spite of the broadly sceptical reception, a few One afternoon in December 2018, Misra welcomed WIRED
were intrigued by SoftBank’s proposition. One such person to the headquarters of the Vision Fund, in a four-storey
was Mohammed bin Salman, the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia. Edwardian building in London’s Mayfair. He was barefoot
A 500-strong Saudi delegation visited Tokyo in May 2017. and had rolled up his shirt sleeves, revealing a Shamballa
Before meeting Bin Salman, Son and Misra first pitched the bracelet on one wrist. During the conversation, his mood
idea of the Vision Fund to the prince’s closest advisers, intro- shifted between enthusiastic and pensive, at which point he
duced by two former colleagues of Misra’s at Deutsche Bank. would pause and puff on an electronic cigarette.
A few days later, they received the Crown Prince at the palatial Currently, Misra’s Vision Fund has a portfolio of more than
Geihinkan state guesthouse in central Tokyo. According to 60 companies. This includes an estimated $7 billion stake in
an interview Son gave to financier David Rubenstein later US graphics processor manufacturer Nvidia; a $502 million
stake in British startup Improbable, which develops large-
scale virtual reality worlds for gaming and training; and a
$250m stake in the productivity platform Slack. A consortium
led by SoftBank has also invested around $8 billion in Uber.
Misra heads a team of managing partners – seven of them
based at the fund’s Silicon Valley outpost, two in Japan, and
two in London – who scrutinise dozens of companies weekly in
search of potential opportunities for investment. They come
together on a regular basis to collectively review the spread
of deals presented by individual partners.
These ideas are then peer-reviewed, with due diligence
being undertaken by an independent team in a rigorous vetting
 process that can take months to complete. At a later stage,
the deals are submitted to SoftBank’s Investment Advisor
Committee, which includes Son and Misra. If there is consensus
about an idea, the entrepreneur is then invited to sit down with
Son, who meets every single founder before a deal is closed.
“When I met him, in early 2017, I explained how my
company had become a leading hotel company in India,”
says Ritesh Agarwal, chief executive officer of Oyo Rooms,
India’s largest hotel network. “I didn’t think the timing was
right to expand to China. He told me that I should absolutely
expand to China – and consider spending a lot of time there.
In November, we set up our first hotel in Shenzhen. We are
now among the top five hotel chains in China. His ability
to think far ahead is unparalleled.”
The lower limit for a Vision Fund investment is $100 million,
PHOTOGRAPHY: JAKE CHESSUM
but most are between $500 million to a few billion, typically
for 20 to 40 per cent of the company. “It’s changed the game
for investing in a dramatic way,” Michael Marks, CEO of the US
construction startup Katerra, observes. “Tech companies are
becoming billion-dollar businesses. I think that SoftBank was
just the first to see that it could deploy much more capital and
get big returns. It over-invests to anoint the winners. It may
turn out it’s a colossal risk and doesn’t work out, but I think
it will. It’s a fascinating experiment,” Marks says.
Of course, investments alone and the abundance of capital
don’t reveal the true nature of SoftBank’s underlying strength:
Son’s “cluster of number ones” strategy, the complex network
of affiliated and portfolio companies whose whole is theoreti-
cally greater than the sum of its parts – an added value derived
PHOTOGRAPHY: XXXXXXXXX
from the partnerships and business opportunities that
come with being a part of the SoftBank family.
This is a global network that includes Apple,
Qualcomm, Sharp, Alibaba, Sprint (the fourth-largest
carrier in the US), Yahoo! Japan (which, unlike its
US parent, remains the most popular website in its
country) and SoftBank Mobile, whose $23.5 billion
IPO last December was the second biggest market
listing of all time. The Vision Fund is also one of the
biggest foreign investors in India, China and Europe.
It has a presence in Mumbai, Singapore, Riyadh and
Abu Dhabi. “When you think about investment, when
you look at most of the American firms, they don’t do
global, very few of them do true global stuff,” Thévenon
says. “SoftBank, however, is everywhere.”
Companies have autonomy to pursue these
partnerships, but these are often win-win synergies
that can accelerate growth globally. Consider the
example of Ping An Good Doctor, an AI provider of
first-line healthcare, which signed an agreement
with south-east Asian ride-sharing company Grab. In
China, a trip to the doctor can last three hours for only
90 seconds of consultation, so Ping wants to use
Grab’s geolocation platforms to accelerate the initial
triage and screening process of patients.
Rajeev Misra, Oyo Rooms, has, through deploying a machine
CEO of the $100 learning platform, managed to standardised its hotel
billion SoftBank experience globally – from tech-enabled check-ins to
Vision Fund housekeeping. It ran a partnership campaign with
DiDi in China using the slogan: “Ride comfortably
with DiDi and stay comfortably with Oyo.”
Paytm, an Indian mobile wallet startup that
processes 450 million transactions a month, recently
launched PayPay in Japan with Yahoo! Japan.
And then, of course, there is Arm. In collabo-
ration with Mapbox, Segars’ chip-design firm has
already developed software that allows Arm-enabled
devices automatically to classify road boundaries,
lane markings, curbs, crossings and traffic signs.
Boston Dynamics is also deploying Arm processors in
the motor control of its latest robots.
These are the sorts of partnerships SoftBank has
fostered, and they will allow Arm to remain at the
centre of gravity of Son’s vision of the singularity,
enabling a future that is populated by robots, drones,
autonomous vehicles and a trillion connected devices.
“I think another very common theme that runs
through all of our investments is really around data,”
Jeffrey Housenbold, a managing partner at the Vision
Fund, says. “It’s really about data and the merger of
human and machine in this notion of the singularity
and artificial intelligence. How do we process that
data in order to make the world a better place – to
make people happier, to enrich their lives, to provide
better products and services? It doesn’t matter
if it’s by using data to enable drug discovery or trying
to make food delivery more efficient. Data runs
across almost every one of our companies.”
That’s Masayoshi Son’s vision: a future where every
time that we use our smartphone, or call a taxi, or
order a meal, or stay in a hotel, or make a payment,
or receive medical treatment, we will be doing so in a
data transaction with a company that belongs to the
SoftBank family. And, as Son likes to say: “Whoever
controls data controls the world.”
João Medeiros is features director of WIRED
 Right now, children are filming themselves chewing,
whispering and tapping to give their adult audience
an “autonomous sensory meridian response”. The Chinese
government banned them, and PayPal blocked their
payments, yet some still earn thousands. But at what cost?

Safe & sound?

By Amelia Tait
Photography :
JUCO
08 5
“Eating
Honeycomb –
Sticky
Sounds”
@ GIBI.ASMR
AGE : 24
MAJOR : SOFT SOUNDS
1.5M SUBSCRIBERS
Gibi produces role-play
videos that focus on
resonances that can help
her audience to relax
and drift off to a deep sleep.
Left: Makenna Kelly, 13.
Her YouTube channel,
Life With MaK, has nearly
1,300,000 subscribers
On June 3 2018, Makenna Kelly, a 13-year-old
from Fort Collins, Colorado, uploaded the video
that propelled her to internet stardom. Entitled:
Raw
EXTREMELY
Mouth
it featured the teenager chewing fistfuls of pure
honeycomb directly in front of a microphone for 16
minutes. In the following months, it was viewed 12
million times. By October, Kelly (pictured left and
previous spread) had a million YouTube subscribers.
“I jumped all around and I celebrated with apple
cider and it was just really, really fun… I got hy-per,”
she laughs, stressing the syllables.
The video was for those who experience “ASMR”.
Short for “autonomous sensory meridian response”,
ASMR is a euphoric feeling certain people get from
specific auditory stimuli. Those who experience it
can be triggered by whispering, chewing or tapping
sounds, eliciting bodily responses from feeling
tingles to simply become incredibly relaxed.
“I just tried it because I thought it would help
out my channel, and it did, yeah,” Kelly says of her
honeycomb video. When she started her channel in
March 2018, Kelly made more traditional YouTube
videos – in which she filmed herself applying
make-up and eating different foreign snacks. “It
was exciting,” she says of going viral, “because
I was like, this could actually be my dream. I’ve
always wanted a lot of subscribers.”
While most girls her age earned their pocket
money babysitting, Kelly spent the summer of 2018
in her bedroom, filming 50 custom-made ASMR
videos. She would receive daily email requests from
subscribers to her channel for a bespoke video,
shoot the footage, receive the money over PayPal
(ten minutes cost $50, whereas for $30 – about £23
– you’d get a five-minute clip), and upload the video
to her YouTube channel, Life with MaK.
“People asked for really weird things,” she
explains, “like tapping on a TV or playing with
string.” One stranger paid Kelly $50 to film herself
eating cookies and milk. In an 11-minute video, Kelly
tapped on the biscuits with her pink fingernails
before biting into them and slurping them down
with a jar of milk. More than 300,000 watched it.
Kelly’s mum, 40-year-old veterinary physician
Nichole Lacy, only found out about her daughter’s
channel a month after it was created, at which point
she started to monitor it daily, handling the email
requests. (Kelly is no longer allowed to look at the
emailed requests she gets – two of which were
“inappropriate” and promptly deleted.)
Life with MaK currently has nearly 1.3 million
subscribers – which means that Kelly has a lot of
money. The teenager earns revenue from adverts
that play on her YouTube channel (estimated at
$500 per day), plus sponsorships from brands and
payments for custom videos. She was named one
of Teen Vogue’s “21 under 21” in November 2018.
But the biggest ASMR artist, or “ASMRtist”, on
YouTube is 21-year-old Taylor Darling – aka ASMR
Darling – who has more than 2.1 million subscribers
and earns an estimated $1,000 a day in advertising.
Global megabrands such as IKEA, Sony, McDonald’s
and Toyota have all created ASMR-inspired adverts,
and in October 2018, platinum rapper Cardi B made
an ASMR video that has gone on to be viewed more
than 13 million times. It’s no longer surprising
that 75 per cent of children want to be YouTubers,
but these kids don’t want to be the next beauty-
blogging Zoella or game-streaming PewDiePie. They
want to be the next brain-tingling ASMR Darling.
*
The term ASMR was coined in 2010 by Jennifer
Allen, a 39-year-old who works for a cybersecurity
company. “For years I had thought, ‘Jeez, maybe I
have a brain tumour or something,’” she recalls. “If
you don’t have an answer for a bodily phenomenon
you kind of fill in the blanks eventually.”
From 1999 onwards, Allen searched steadfastly
for others like her online. In the late noughties,
she stumbled upon a SteadyHealth.com forum in
which a user named okaywhatever51838 discussed
a “weird sensation” that “feels good”.
“Nobody had any answers, so I decided to try to
help everyone co-ordinate,” says Allen, who created
a Facebook group to spread the term that she had
come up with. “It’s been an exponential rise since
then. I think because it’s a genuine experience that
many people never had a way of qualifying before.”
For outsiders, ASMR has always been weird. “One
thing that’s interesting about the ASMR experience
is that it’s about close personal attention,” says Dr
Giulia Poerio, of Sheffield University’s psychology
department, who has undertaken multiple ASMR
studies. Role-play videos are a thriving industry
in the ASMR community – online, you can watch
someone pretend to be your dentist, masseuse,
or even a receptionist checking you into a hotel.
“They’re basically a simulation of what would
happen if you got ASMR in real life,” Poerio explains.
“Multiple triggers are layered to get an effect.”
 The bizarreness of this footage means ASMR isn’t
without controversies. In June 2018, the Chinese
government banned ASMR videos, branding
them “vulgar” and “pornographic”. Following in
August, PayPal began blocking the accounts of
ASMRtists who received money to make custom
videos (although the company later denied it has a
policy against ASMR content). For those who don’t
experience ASMR, the videos can seem fetishistic.
Beyond the weirdness of whispering and making
“mouth sounds”, as in Kelly’s honeycomb video,
some people nickname ASMR a “brain orgasm”.
In June 2018, Poerio conducted a study of the
physiological responses around ASMR. Videos
designed to trigger ASMR were played to 50 people
who get ASMR and a control group of 50 non-ASMR
participants. “We found that people who experience
ASMR showed significant reductions in their heart
rates compared with non-ASMR participants,”
Poerio explains. “These reductions are compa-
rable to other stress-reduction techniques such as
mindfulness and music therapy.” Poerio says this
finding is crucial, because reduced heart rates prove
people who enjoy ASMR are not sexually aroused.
“I compare it to getting the world’s best massage,
but no one has to be touching you because you
can feel it by watching ASMR videos,” says Craig
Richard, a professor of biopharmaceutical sciences
at Shenandoah University, and founder of the
website ASMR University.
Richard, who is also the author of Brain Tingles:
The Secret to Triggering Autonomous Sensory
Meridian Response for Improved Sleep, Stress
Relief, and Head-to-Toe Euphoria, estimates that
about 20 per cent of the population experience
strong ASMR. What triggers people may come down
to individual preferences. “The key to triggering
ASMR is to create gentle sounds,” he says. Richard’s
own triggers include eye tests and the old PBS series
The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross.
According to YouTube estimates, there are more
than 45 million ASMR videos uploaded to the site,
and over the past year there has been a marked
increase in children making ASMR-related videos.
Richard hypothesises that our brain is probably
more receptive to an unknown child than a strange
adult, making it easier for some individuals to be
relaxed by ASMR videos featuring children.
The unanswered question remains: is it right for
children to trigger – as the title of Richard’s book
puts it – “head-to-toe euphoria” in adults?
For instance, on her ASMR Toddler YouTube
channel, five-year-old Aoki Hunnicutt (pictured
following spread) whispers, plays with her dolls’
hair and chews gum for delighted fans. In her
most-watched video, she role-plays as a make-up
artist by pretending to apply products to the viewer.
(She also gets distracted and picks her nose.)
“For me, something about when kids whisper,
it’s, oh my god, it’s so relaxing,” enthuses Desiree
Hunnicutt, Aoki’s mother, who started watching
ASMR videos in 2011. Hunnicutt says that she was
motivated to create the ASMR Toddler channel in
order to help people. “I see comments where people
are like, ‘Oh my goodness, I watch every night and
it helps me fall asleep,’” she says. “To me that’s
perfect, that’s what we’re trying to do.”
Most importantly for Hunnicutt, Aoki seems 08 6
to love making the videos simply for their own
sake, and isn’t pushed to perform. Like many
five-year-olds, she also loves trying on her mother’s
lipsticks; but unlike most five-year-olds, Aoki was
encouraged to rummage through her mother’s
make-up bag – and a camera captured the results.
“I put all the lipstick on!” Aoki grins, explaining that
this video was her favourite to make.
“If you can’t experience it you’re gonna either @ KLUNA.TIK
think it’s weird or you’re gonna think it’s creepy,” AGE : UNKNOWN
Hunnicutt says. Aoki – now playing with her toys MAJOR : STUNT EATING
in the corner of the room – thinks aloud. “IT’S NOT 5.7M SUBSCRIBERS
CREEPY!” she shouts emphatically (although it’s
SET DESIGNER: DANE JOHNSON
worth noting that with her childish rhotacism, it Kluna eats unusual
comes out as “cweepy”). Like many ASMRtists, she “food”, such as sand or
notes that these videos help people with insomnia, balloons. This is more
PTSD and stress. “I mean there’s always some macabre audio-visual
weirdos in the world, but you can’t stop helping ASMR – all the posts warn
others just because there are those people.” not to try this at home.
*
In October 2017, Anthony Fleck, a 24-year-old
ASMR fan, reported a channel by a “little girl”
YouTuber whose commenters asked her to suck
on pickles and lick lollipops.
“I can’t speak for everybody but as an adult man
I have no reason to ever want to watch a kid make
ASMR videos,” Fleck says. “I saw her channel and
it only took a few seconds of scrolling through the
comments to see all these people asking her to do
really perverse things that she obviously didn’t
understand she shouldn’t be doing.”
Fleck reported the channel to YouTube and
asked others in the ASMR community to do the
same. “I reported it under child abuse, which you
think would immediately throw up a red flag, but
the channel stayed.” Months later, the channel
disappeared – though it’s unclear if it was removed
by YouTube or the girl herself.
“I don’t think enough is done,” Fleck says. “This
little girl was wearing sweatshirts with her school’s
name on them, you have the danger of being doxxed,
people finding out where you are.” Thankfully, Fleck
feels members of the ASMR community look out for
each other. “It’s just a little difficult, because other
than reaching out to get YouTube to do something,
we’re kind of powerless.”
What does a YouTuber do when they want to
complain about YouTube? They make a YouTube
video. In October 2018, Makenna Kelly became
the topic of outraged videos after she uploaded a
role-play entitled “ASMR – SASSY Police Officer/
Cop”. In the video, Kelly wore a police officer
costume and knee-high boots while wielding a
baton. Her “sassy” behaviour – smacking her lips,
singing the Pussycat Dolls song “Don’t Cha” and
talking about Tinder dates – was interpreted as
sexual by some viewers.
“We got a lot of hate,” her mother says. “In
the video she’s wearing a Halloween costume of
super-thin fabric – and this is probably too much
 information – but she’s wearing a bra in the video,
like a bralette, but it kind of looks like she’s not
wearing one.” I look over at Kelly, who hides her
head in her hands. “So there’s all that stuff going
around where it’s like, OK, but I can’t cut her nipples
off for the video,” Lacy explains.
The pair have no regrets about the role-play,
which they scripted together and say is simply a
comedy video. “It’s like, you can’t blame me for
your mind working that way,” Kelly says. “It’s not
my problem your mind is in the gutter and stuff.”
Two weeks after we speak, and seven weeks
after it was first uploaded, the “sassy cop” video
is taken down by YouTube. The company made the
decision to delete it a week after being contacted
for comment by WIRED for this feature.
“We believe technology presents great oppor-
tunities for young people to express themselves
creatively and access useful information, but we
also know we have a responsibility to protect young
creators and families and consider the potential
impact of emerging trends on them,” said Claire
Lilley, YouTube’s child safety policy manager.
“We’ve been working with experts to update our
enforcement guidelines for reviewers to remove
ASMR videos featuring minors engaged in more
intimate or inappropriate acts,” Lilley commented.
“We are working alongside experts to make sure
that we are protecting young creators while also
allowing ASMR content that connects creators and
viewers in positive ways.”
@ASMR.CRACKLE YouTube banned Kelly’s channel for three days
AGE : 26 in November, but eventually reinstated it after
MAJOR : SOAP CUTTING discussions with the family. The company’s delayed
170,000 FOLLOWERS decision against its largest child ASMRtist leaves
PROP STYLIST: DANE JOHNSON
questions about whether the phenomenon can
From her base in Leeds, be adequately monitored. Videos featuring the
Nazish Mahmood cuts sexualisation of minors are banned by the site,
soap on Instagram and ASMR “mouth sound” videos now fall within
and YouTube. The trend this remit. Yet at the time of writing, a search for
evolved from slime videos. “child ASMR mouth sounds” on YouTube brings up
hundreds of videos with a troubling number of views.
So, do parents or YouTube bear the ultimate
responsibility for the safety of these young
creators? While we wait for an answer, child
ASMRtists are taking things into their own hands.
*
The website for ASMRtist United looks remarkably
like it was created by a child – which it was. The
site was founded in August 2017 by 14-year-old
Jacob Daniel, whose “company” offers advice to
ASMRtists under the age of 18. There is a guide on
how to filter out sexual comments, advice on coping
with cyberbullying, and a post entitled: “How do I
stop my school from finding my channel?”
“There are a lot of young ASMRtists, and I try
to tell them, let your parents know,” says Daniel,
who has 24,000 subscribers on his channel Jacob-
Jacob15. He looks out for other ASMRtists (he
also reported the channel of the young girl licking
lollipops) and offers help to young YouTubers.
“Someone told one of our members, ‘Oh, I have
your address, I’m going to give it to a bunch of
paedophiles,’” Daniel says. “This member called
me, crying and sobbing, and I felt so horrible.” The
child told his parents, and gave up making videos.
“I know I’m only 14,” Daniel says, “but we have
strict, strict rules. If we get a report on anything,
we report it to the National Center for Missing and
Exploited Children… I’ve been on YouTube since I
was about five. I’ve got a lot of hate comments so I
know how to handle everything.” His channel is full
of disclaimers. Under all his videos are the words
“Account Monitored and Managed by Parents”,
which he says he wrote as a strategy to reduce the
amount of hate comments posted.
“He does things with the computer and editing
that I know nothing of,” says Daniel’s 53-year-old
mother, Parker Prunkl, with a grin. “I know
Microsoft Word and Excel but his editing… I think
he’ll grow up into the film industry.”
Although Prunkl is proud of her son and helps
him film videos and buy props, Daniel still seems
very much in charge. When I first emailed Prunkl
to set up an interview with her son, she was polite
and excited. Daniel later confessed he was actually
the one who responded to my email.
Daniel is clearly a savvy child – although excitable
and eccentric, he talks soberly about safety on
YouTube, clapping his hands as he tells children
to “be, be safe”. He advises kids to use fake names,
access their email with VPNs, and avoid making
custom Skype calls with viewers. For all his intel-
ligence, however, Daniel is still a child. He and
Prunkl show off a series of wigs they play with at
home – he dons a purple one with red horns; Prunkl
shows me her doll. They talk excitedly about the
pranks they play on the public, wearing the wigs
to order food in takeaway shops.
“I didn’t know he was gonna have a channel this
big, I thought it was a phase or a hobby,” Prunkl says.
“This is a whole new world to me, the ASMR thing –
According to YouTube estimates,
there are more than 45 million
ASMR videos uploaded to the site
to tell you the truth, I didn’t know what it was and
he kept explaining it to me until I figured it out.”
Daniel and Prunkl might have it figured out but,
like Makenna Kelly, they still experience troubling
comments. An older man sends Daniel letters and
once drove past him on the street and shouted at
him. Prunkl describes the man as “fixated”.
“In one letter he made a stylised JacobJacob15
ASMR logo, and I looked and found out he took my
channel name and basically put it on a swastika,”
Daniel says. “And he said he was sending me a
motivational armband. I know a lot about history,
and I know who had motivational armbands.”
Daniel and Prunkl keep a folder full of this
man’s transgressions and have notified the local
police. “Sometimes it scares me,” Daniel confesses,
quieter now. “It does scare me that this guy could
be anywhere.” Similarly, Kelly fears her address
could leak online, and takes steps to counter this.
For these families, such concerns are just another
part of YouTube fame. “He’s putting himself out
there. You’re gonna expect some people to do things
if you’re putting yourself out there,” says Prunkl,
“no different from a singer or a movie star.”
* At one football game, kids swamped her for photos.
The left side of Makenna Kelly’s bedroom is just like
any other child’s. Her silver and white bedspread
matches a feature wall, she has a dresser with her
own TV, and her nickname – “Kenna” – is spelled
out in wooden letters above the window. On the
right side of her room, however, things are less
ordinary. There are three professional studio lights
and a tripod, a silver plaque congratulating her on
100,000 YouTube subscribers and a framed letter
from Susan Wojcicki, YouTube’s CEO. Sellotaped
on the closet door is the fan mail.
“I love you so much!” writes 11-year-old Keeley.
“You inspire me to keep filming videos.” Some kids
have drawn Kelly, others her cats. One child sent
ten dollars and asked to be mentioned in a video.
Audrey (who signs off as “your biggest fan”)
writes that Kelly inspires her, but she’s scared to
start making ASMR videos because “I don’t want
to be made fun of at school or something”.
Mockery is a problem for any child in the
limelight – one of Jacob Daniel’s fellow ASMRtist
United founders quit YouTube after being picked
on at school. Kelly says there are rumours that one
girl at school said she was “annoying”, but most
people think her channel is “cool”.
Yet Kelly isn’t just a famous ASMRtist – she is also
a meme. People edit her videos into short clips and
share them with relatable captions. “She did not
get at it first, she just kind of thought, well, memes
can be mean,” says Lacy, who had to explain to her
daughter what a meme was. “Now she thinks they’re
hilarious, she’s seen a million of herself.”
Lacy is no cliché pageant mum. Lounging on the
sofa with wet hair and a grey T-shirt emblazoned
with a peace sign, she sits back, scrolling on her
phone, to let her child speak candidly. She does
not push Makenna to answer in a favourable way, 090
nor is she pushing her daughter into stardom in
pursuit of fame or riches. “She makes significantly
more money than I do and works significantly less
than I do,” laughs Lacy, sitting with her legs tucked
underneath her in the middle of the family’s modest
apartment. “She doesn’t have to babysit or dog-sit
or anything, so it works out good.” Her daughter
smiles shyly, showing off pink braces: “I do want
to babysit though! I like kids.”
“She has definitely set herself up for a good
future. I don’t want to give exact figures,” says
Lacy – who Kelly calls her “momager”. Lacy gives
her daughter $300 pocket money every month. @ MASSAGEASMR
“The rest of the money is in a savings account. When AGE : 44
she gets older, she’ll have the opportunity to buy a MAJOR: VIRTUAL MASSAGE
home, a car, within reason. She swears she’s gonna 745,000 SUBSCRIBERS
get a Lamborghini, and we said absolutely not.”
PROP STYLIST (PREVIOUS SPREAD):
“Hey!” Kelly retorts. “When I have the money I’m Australian masseuse
gonna get it!” She is an animated child, fashion- Dimitry offers viewers a
conscious in an off-the-shoulder dress, her brand virtual “spa” experience,
DANE JOHNSON
new bob haircut swinging as she speaks. Her via a medley of finger-
iridescent rainbow false nails flash in the November tapping and material-
sunlight that her two cats – the hairless Gwenie and manipulation sensations.
the hairy Aggie – are soaking up.
Kelly knows that she inspires other kids to take up
ASMR – children at school ask for advice on videos.
“It was like… crazy,” Kelly whispers dramatically.
“I walked past this group of cheerleaders and they
all got quiet. They came up one after another and
were like, ‘Let’s take a picture.’”
Emotionally, Kelly and Daniel seem equipped to
deal with this backlash. (Aoki Hunnicutt remains
blissfully unaware of negativity, and much else to do
with fame – at one point in our interview, she asks
with concern: “Mummy, I thought we were going
to do an interview?”) Yet while they are fine with @ SASITTUBE
their fame, it may trouble the young stars to lose it. AGE : 36
“We talked to her about how it’s good today MAJOR : EATING SOUNDS
but might be gone tomorrow,” Lacy says. With 4.5M SUBSCRIBERS
YouTube’s stricter regulations, child ASMRtists
may be replaced by an as yet unknown breed of Mukbang (from muk-ja,
internet celebrity. Desiree Hunnicutt is hoping Korean for eating, and
that Aoki’s early debut on YouTube will allow her bang-song, broadcasting)
to start a business. “I believe in Aoki figuring out is huge in ASMR videos.
what it is that she wants to do in life even early on Canadian Sas specialises
and I hope it actually helps her,” she says. in crunchy or wet eating.
With the summer over and homework to focus
on, Kelly isn’t making any more custom videos. She
continues to upload her regular videos two or three
times a week, but doesn’t want to do it for ever.
“I don’t know, I might continue doing YouTube
for a few more years but I definitely don’t want it
to be my job when I’m older, because I like going
out of the house for a job,” she says, now restless at
the end of our interview, telling her mum she’d like
to grab some chicken nuggets. (I wonder, will she
film herself eating them?) Kelly would like to be an
actor, or a dermatologist, or a teacher – she’s young
enough to neither know nor really care.
Whatever career path she chooses, however, one
thing is almost guaranteed. Makenna Kelly will most
likely be the first person to buy a Lamborghini with Right and previous
money earned from eating cookies and milk.  left-hand page:
five-year-old ASMR
Amelia Tait wrote about Bumble in 10.17 star Aoki Hunnicutt
 0 00
PHOTOGRAPHY: XXXXXXXXX
N
A
  
 Fo r t he fi rs t t ime,
Nas a has o pe ne d up
i ts arc hiv es, whi ch
re co rd 60 y ea rs o f
aeronautics and
space travel. WIRED
o f f e rs a n e xc l u s i v e
p re v iew of images
f ro m Ta s c h e n’s

S
c el eb ra tor y book

A

Previous: Alan Shepard in the
capsule of Freedom 7 on May
5, 1961, the day he became
the first American in space –
a huge achievement despite
the fact that Russia’s Yuri
Gagarin had beaten the US
into space by three weeks.
Shepard took a 15-minute
suborbital flight around the
planet, eventually splashing
down near the Bahamas.
Neil Armstrong descends the
ladder of the Apollo 11 lunar
module, on to the surface of
the Moon in 1969. But if he
was first, who is taking the
picture? As Armstrong exited
the craft, he pulled a cord,
which released a camera on a
tether, enabling the historic
WORDS: SANJANA VARGHESE
first steps to be captured.
Half a billion people around
the world watched on TV as
images of the iconic “One
small step…” moment were
broadcast back to Earth.
Navy divers from the USS
Wasp, in the Pacific Ocean,
during retrieval of the two-
person crew of the Gemini
6A spacecraft in 1965. At
the time, landing in bodies
of water was considered the
safest option for keeping a
crew alive and minimising
damage to the vehicle
after re-entry. The capsule
is currently on display in
the Stafford Air & Space
Museum, in Oklahoma.
The prime and backup crews
for the Gemini 11 spacecraft
(which flew in 1966) relax
by the Mission Simulator at
Cape Kennedy. On the far
right is Neil Armstrong, who
was a backup command pilot
at the time. The astronauts
   regularly undertook training
to prepare for accidents and
worst-case scenarios that
might happen while in space.
 Borne on three parachutes,
the Apollo 16 capsule
descends into the Pacific
Ocean in 1972. Apollo 16 was
the penultimate spacecraft
to reach the Moon; landing
in the lunar highlands – as
opposed to the lunar maria
sites of earlier missions –
it gave the astronauts the
opportunity to collect almost
100kg of geologically
older samples of material.
Buzz Aldrin tests a gas
powered jet pack near a
Gemini capsule in the 1960s.
For astronauts, getting
into space is only part of
the challenge – moving
around and returning to the
spacecraft in a bulky suit
are added complications.
Inventions like the jet pack
would have helped, but it
   didn’t receive a successful
test run until the 1980s.
Charlie Duke, one of the
astronauts on the Apollo 16
flight, dropped this photo
of his family, at their home
in Texas, on to the surface
on the Moon during one of
his excursions. The actual
photograph will have
faded, because of exposure
to harsh lunar conditions,
but this image of the event
is preserved in the
Nasa archives in Houston.
The space shuttle Discovery,
docked at the International
Space Station in 2005. Its
first flight was in 1984 and it
was operational for 27 years,
flying 238 million km. Notable
missions include carrying
the Hubble Space Telescope
into orbit, before its final trip
into space on February
24, 2011. Discovery is now
on display at Washington
Dulles International Airport.
<< Previous: inside the All images from The Nasa Archives:
International Space Station, 60 Years in Space, published by
around 400km above Earth, Taschen on February 25
flight engineer Chris Cassidy
floats inside the Cupola, a
dome 3m in diameter that is
equipped with seven silica-
borosilicate glass windows.
  
It was flown to the station
in 2010 on a mission by the
space shuttle Endeavour.
Yelena Serova trains for
Expedition 41, her flight to the
International Space Station,
in 2014. Serova was the
fourth female cosmonaut,
but the first Russian woman
to go to the International
Space Station, on a mission
that lasted from September
2014 to March 2015. As a
Russian cosmonaut, she
trained for the journey in a
Soyuz spacecraft simulator.
On return, the Soyuz capsule
landed in Kazakhstan.

A Russian Soyuz rocket

launches from the Baikonur
Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan.
The Soyuz launch systems
were created in the 1960s,
and have proved extremely
reliable – the Russian Space
Agency has continued to
use the booster elements
(the bottom part of the
spacecraft) in modern
space missions. With 1,700
flights, these are the most
widely used launch systems
around the world. A Soyuz
vehicle is kept docked at the
International Space Station
at all times, in case
an escape craft is needed.

Nasa’s Anechoic Chambers

are among the quietest
places anywhere on Earth.
The walls absorb almost all
stray echoes, whether sound
or radio. This 1972 model of a
shuttle, being tested for radio
characteristics, has thruster
pods on the wing-tips. 
UNFINISHED SYMPHONY
A I R E M I X E S.
DNA ARCHIVING.
A R C O N C E R T S.
IT’S BEEN
20 YEARS SINCE
MEZZANINE,
A N D MASSIVE
AT TACK’S
EXPERIMENT
IS STILL
RUNNING…
BY STEPHEN ARMSTRONG
PHOTOGRAPHY :
WARREN DU PREEZ &
NICK THORNTON JONES

On a warm July evening in 2013, an
excited crowd gathered in the derelict
Mayfield train depot in Manchester,
surrounded on three sides of the vast
Edwardian station by translucent
screens flickering with images of
Helmand, teenage Siberian gangs,
bleak 70s New York, Vladimir Putin,
Bambi and Jane Fonda. As the images
strobed then slowed, bass-shaking
cover versions of Barbra Streisand
songs, bubblegum pop, Nirvana and
Russian punk classics rumbled
through the speakers.
The show – a chopped-up riff on a
post-9/11 world – was a joint venture
between Bristol-based Massive Attack
and Adam Curtis, the film-maker behind
provocative documentary series like The
Power of Nightmares and All Watched
Over by Machines of Loving Grace.
“It was a strange gig to play live – we
were working to a timecode set by the
video, and because the audience were
surrounded by screens they often had
their backs to us,” Massive Attack’s
co-founder Robert Del Naja – otherwise
known as 3D – recalls. “I’m not sure we
got it right until the end.”
When the gig finished, Del Naja
headed for his dressing room, where
he bumped into an old friend who was
waiting backstage – Ray Cooper, who
had originally signed Massive Attack to
their first label in 1988.
Cooper had brought along a colleague,
Andrew Melchior. Melchior had been
one of the first in the music industry to
recognise how technology could help
artists. Working at EMI and Virgin in the
‘ T H E Y W E R E TA K I N G
THE AI TOOLS OF
THE UTOPIAN
T E C H C O M PA N I E S
AND USING
THEM TO MAKE ART’
Right: Robert Del Naja in his studio, wearing his paint-spray respirator
late 90s, he set up the equivalent of an
in-house startup that developed artists’
digital streaming, blogging, ringtones
and artwork. In 1998 he helped David
Bowie create a fully-fledged e-com-
merce-driven ISP – David.com – a
precursor to massive virtual worlds
such as Second Life. Users would sign
in, choose from a range of avatars,
and join text-based chatrooms. Bowie
himself often assumed a rabbit avatar
and joined in the conversations.
“He understood how music was
going to become like water – available
everywhere for free,” Melchior explains.
“He created and sold Bowie bonds –
securitised rights to future royalties
based on past sales. He was cashing
out for tens of millions before everyone
caught on – he knew the music would be
worth less over time. David.com became
Ultrastar – the first artist-owned online
merchandising company, creating
T-shirts and posters for acts such as
U2, the Rolling Stones and Sting. It was
like an Amazon for artists well before
Radiohead, and it meant when people
bought Rolling Stones merchandise,
Bowie also got a royalty.”
Melchior and Cooper were advising
US-based augmented reality startup
Magic Leap. Watching Massive Attack’s
show, Melchior sensed an opportunity.
“The creative energy and innovation
of that show was perfectly suited to
the brave new world of mixed reality
spectacle,” Melchior explains.
The three men chatted for hours.
On Massive Attack’s recent tours, Del
Naja had been trying to include locally
sampled headlines, images and stories
in the band’s newsfeed-style light show,
flashing text across screens dotted
around the stage. He wondered how
he could adapt the onscreen narrative
each night based on audience reaction.
Melchior and Del Naja also shared
an obsession with The Sims computer
game. Melchior knew its creator, the
legendary Will Wright. He suggested Del
Naja take a trip to California, first to see
how Magic Leap was using music in its
AR headset, and then to talk to Wright.
In September 2013, they met him at
the HQ of his startup, Stupid Fun Club.
For the past few years Wright had been
working on Thread, a social media app
that combined Instagram, Spotify and
Draw Something – allowing users to
blend sound, music, images and text
in their posts – and on ways to tag and
share music to generate the audio in
games, creating musical mind maps
for computers to compose on the fly.
“They were taking the AI tools of the
utopian tech companies and using
them to make art,” Del Naja explains.
“He had these mind maps on the wall –
some were diagrams of the human brain
labelled with the brain parts we use to
tag smells or process emotion and
retrieve things. Some were metabrains
– maps of the way people connected.
He was using them to see how content
and understanding worked in the
human brain – we access data, click
on anything we have, then rearrange it
and change it into another idea.
“For me, everything was in a box
before that – your phone and your
internet had their limits set. I could see
everything spread out in front of me and
saw there wasn’t anything we couldn’t
organise then reorganise, then redis-
cover and redistribute.
“Anyone in the creative industry
who didn’t do that would lose control
to the labels and tech giants who were
stitching things up.”
Massive Attack’s music has always
relied on collaborators – while tracks
were built entirely from samples, other
musicians always inspired different
things for the band. Tracey Thorn’s
haunting vocals added a mournful
longing to “Protection”; Shara Nelson’s
deep, warm range made “Unfinished
Sympathy” feel like an old soul tune over
the top of grinding samples.
“Each time you find the muse you see
things in a new way,” Del Naja explains.
“If you don’t keep changing that muse
you end up building comfortable
routines where there’s no tension and
everyone knows how to behave. When
you get to that point of comfort, there’s
not a lot more to explore.”
Now, as Wright demoed his software,
Del Naja found himself becoming fasci-
nated by the AI’s relentless attempts to
generate or perfect images, responses
or behaviours – trying, failing and
repeating without any flashes of temper
or sullen degrading of performance.
“I thought the tension between
competing AIs or the tension between
human and AI could be equally creative,”
he says. “To work in a world where movie
trailers are created by AI, we needed to
be creating the algorithms ourselves
– employing technology rather than
have it make us unemployed.” The
question was: could AI help him create
something entirely new? Could AI
become his collaborator and muse?
Massive Attack’s studio stretches
across two floors of a building on an
industrial estate near Bristol Temple
Meads railway station. The ground
floor has music studios and a virtual
reality studio equipped with motion
capture cameras. The upper floor
has an assembly line of robotic arms
alongside old Wurlitzer organs.
Del Naja is slim, unshaven, with a
loose mass of hair that looks like he’s
growing out a crop. Languid and mellow,
he smiles a lot, especially when talking
about robots and AI. He says it feels like
a natural extension to the way he’s been
creating art ever since he was a teenage
graffiti artist working with spray cans
and chopped-up stencils on the streets
of Bristol back in the 1980s.
Del Naja was born in St Andrews,
a Victorian suburb nestling next to
Bristol’s culturally diverse neigh-
bourhood of St Pauls, where the riots of
the early 80s meant that there was still
a measure of tension between the police
and the community. Del Naja wasn’t
a troublemaker, but he wasn’t hugely
academic, either. “I enjoyed art more
than anything,” he remembers. “I was
obsessed with comics, so I used to draw
images of Spider-Man, superheroes
Right: a 2016 CNN-style transfer
by Pindar Van Amen with Robert
Del Naja and Antony Micallef
and villains all over my exercise books.”
In the 80s he fell in love with the
burgeoning street art/graffiti scene
in New York. One night in 1983 – after
leaving school with one art A-level – he
went out with a stencil of a breakdancer
and started painting walls himself.
Nothing that he created survived for
24 hours. “That made me think of art
as ephemeral – when you’ve done
something, you move on, and then it’s
gone,” Del Naja muses.
He started hanging around in the
Dug Out, a tiny basement bar playing
an eclectic mix of dub reggae, punk,
soul, jazz and early hip hop, providing a
magnet for the late-night party crowd.
There he got to know the Wild Bunch,
key players in Bristol’s lively sound
system scene, where unlicensed
parties were held in borrowed spaces.
This renegade approach meant the
systems had to be infinitely adaptable
– with every member able to fulfil the
roles of selecter (who picked the right
records to keep everyone dancing),
mixer (who put the records on and mixed
the sound live), DJ (who fulfilled the role
of MC, rapping or singing new lyrics over
instrumentals), and box man (in charge
of setting up and maintaining the huge
speakers and bass bins).
The Wild Bunch recruited Del Naja
to spread the outfit’s name using his
graffiti skills, as well as decorating
venues, selling beer out of the boot
of a car, crewing the speaker stack,
and performing as an MC, often all of
these on the same night.
“Everyone wanted the volume turned
up to the top,” Del Naja gives a quiet
smile. “You had to be the loudest.
Carnival day outside Grant’s house on
Campbell Street, there would be a whole
bunch of sound systems at the end
of each road, so you had to make sure
yours was the loudest. You had to push
all the technology to its limit.”
In 1986, the Wild Bunch signed to a
major label, releasing a few singles and
an album before producer Nellee Hooper
left to join rival London sound system
Soul II Soul (eventually producing and
remixing for artists including Madonna
and Björk), and Miles Johnson – DJ
Milo – moved to New York. Besides Del
Naja, the two remaining members were
Andrew “Mushroom” Vowles, a hip-hop

fanatic with mixed Dominican-British
ancestry, and Grant “Daddy G” Marshall,
whose love of music began with the
reggae parties his parents used to throw
when he was a kid. They recruited the
local rapper Adrian “Tricky” Thaws and
founded Massive Attack.
When recording with the Wild Bunch
they’d been inspired by their studio
encounters with cheap, simple samplers
like the Akai S9000, which was mounted
in an effects rack in studios, and the
Akai MPC60, a compact and intuitive
device that could sample and playback
using a series of buttons arranged in a
telephone-style keypad. The MPC60
allowed kids from Bristol to create tracks
on a single machine without knowing
how to play an instrument.
“Sampling made absolute sense to
us,” Del Naja explains. “It was collage,
segments joined together. You could
tap out beats on the MPC, then design
crazy pitch and duration. You’d use and
abuse that technology, but what makes
the album interesting is that the music
written on top of those samples also
had merit as really nice songs.”
The band recorded their debut album
in 1991 using just the Akai S9000 and
the MPC60. Called Blue Lines, its fusion
Spray and play: the can containing the
“DNA” of album Mezzanine – spray
on a wall and the music goes on too
Right: Del Naja and ABB IRB1200, a robot arm. It has used convolutional
neural networks to draw its own interpretation of the Blue Lines album art
of electronica, dub reggae, soul and hip
hop spawned a new genre – trip hop.
The band used guest singers including
Shara Nelson, reggae legend Horace
Andy, French funk performer Wally
Badarou and pop star Neneh Cherry.
The album’s lush, melancholy single
“Unfinished Sympathy” was described
in 2012 by The Guardian as “the greatest
British soul record ever made”.
The group used the same technology
for its 1994 follow-up, Protection
– although the sprawling mass of
collaborators was in constant flux.
Nelson left, to be replaced by Everything
But the Girl’s Tracey Thorn; Hooper
returned to produce the record; and
the Scottish classical pianist Craig
Armstrong played keyboards.
For 1998’s Mezzanine, things became
complicated. Del Naja – who hated
critics calling Protection “dinner party
music” – wanted a harder sound and
started using live guitars and drums,
sampling post-punk and new wave
tracks. Hip-hop loving Vowles was
pushing in the opposite direction
– bringing in clattering drums and
deep bass loops. At one point Vowles
thought of offering “Teardrop”, the
strongest single on the album, to
Madonna, while Del Naja pushed for
Cocteau Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser. The
tensions sometimes spilled out in
public. During one press interview,
Vowles and Del Naja had a stand-up
row about the merits of Puff Daddy in
front of a stunned journalist.
From then on, the two were never
in the studio at the same time, with
Del Naja spending hours alone with
producer Neil Davidge, who would find
himself working on four different tracks
in a single day, swapping between
samples from Isaac Hayes, The Cure
and Manfred Mann’s Earth Band: a
process he describes as “messy”.
This adversarial environment proved
astonishingly fruitful musically –
Mezzanine sold four million copies and
remains the band’s most successful
album – but it was disastrous for the
band. Shortly after its release the group
split. Del Naja and Davidge produced a
fourth, less successful album called
100th Window in 2003, the year coalition
forces invaded Iraq – a war to which Del
Naja was passionately opposed.

As Massive Attack were preparing
to tour, he started collaborating on
visuals with United Visual Artists, a
London-based collective comprising
artist Matt Clark, director Chris Bird and
developer Ash Nehru. Nehru created
software that could sample data and
headlines lifted from local and interna-
tional media, then play them in the local
language across a giant video screen
– from the Iraq war, through socio-po-
litical crises, and on to trashy headlines
from celebrity gossip magazines. The
visuals impressed Alex Poots, head of
the Manchester International Festival,
who invited the band to create a show.
Del Naja asked for a collaborator – and
chose Adam Curtis.
“The contradictions and manipulation
of information leading up to the war
was the first moment in my life I felt
convinced that power and news sources
had to be questioned,” he recalls. “I
wanted our stage show to harvest infor-
mation from the web, chop it up and
translate it into local language, mixing
political and tabloid news from interna-
tional and local sources.” His problem
was that he had always drawn energy
from creative tension, and at that point
he had no musical collaborators.
Shortly after their trip to Silicon
Valley in 2013, Del Naja appointed
Andrew Melchior as the band’s chief
technical officer. Melchior’s job would be
to discover, and introduce Del Naja to,
new forms of technology, in the process
turning Massive Attack into the first
band to collaborate with AI.
Del Naja wanted to create and play
music that changed as the listener
moved through space – the way that
he had heard it while moving through
Magic Leap’s augmented rooms, and the
sharing and machine remixing he’d seen
in Will Wright’s work. “If artists didn’t
take control of this future of music, we’d
be powerless again,” explains Del Naja.
Wright introduced Melchior and
Del Naja to producer and composer
Robert Thomas, chief creative officer
at music app company RjDj. The
technologist had just created an iOS
app for the movie Inception, which
mimicked the film’s dream worlds.
Thomas had adapted the open source
software Pure Data – which can take
any kind of input to control any kind
of output, generating 3D graphics and
video from music or even controlling
external hardware like stage lighting
and robotics. In the Inception app, Pure
Data took inputs from the iPhone’s mic,
camera and global position and used
them to modify the movie soundtrack.
With Thomas, Massive Attack
launched its first platform in January
2016. Christened Fantom, it uses Pure ‘ I WA N T E D
Data live mix patches – algorithms
that sample changes in time of day, O U R S TA G E S H O W
speed of movement, social media
notifications, how the phone is carried TO HARVEST
and GPS position, and use them all to
effectively remix the track in real time. I N F O R M AT I O N
The platform came with an EP of new
material called Ritual Spirit. FROM THE
“Instead of going to the Mad
Professor to make a dub version, we W E B, C H O P I T
could put this app in someone’s pocket
and create mixes using the sensors UP AND
on the phone,” Del Naja explains. “I’ve
had years of procrastination, never T R A N S L AT E I T ’
being able to decide on the finished
product. Suddenly that was no longer
a problem. Ironically, by using tightly
programmed algorithms we were
breaking patterns, creating the most
flexible and constantly changing music.”

‘I F A F U T U R E C I V I L I S AT I O N
CAN SEQUENCE DNA, THEY
CAN LISTEN TO MEZZANINE’
‘REPURPOSE YOUR The problem the band faced was
copyright. Massive Attack relied heavily
O W N M AT E R I A L on samples, which meant ensuring
hundreds of publishers, labels and
INTO DNA AND artists got a credit and a share of
royalties for songs sampled. The band
P U T T H AT I N T O A secured a special agreement from all of
them to allow Ritual Spirit to be released
S P R AY PA I N T for free. But for Fantom to work, Del Naja
realised, he needed to ensure that the
C A N : T H AT ’ S original artists were recognised.
“YouTube can’t recognise the source
MAKING IT INTO of a piece of music if it’s too distorted,”
Melchior says. “The risk with Fantom
SOMETHING NEW’ was that tracks stitched together
from different bits of music needed
to provide proper rights attribution.”
Melchior approached London-
based startup Blokur to guarantee that
Massive Attack’s sample-heavy music
could be remixed and distorted beyond
recognition by algorithms in Fantom,
but also to ensure that the original
copyright holders could get paid.
Blokur had been founded in 2017 by
music industry veterans Andrés Martin-
Lopez and Phil Barry, who lead the team
that released Radiohead frontman Thom
Yorke’s 2014 solo album on BitTorrent.
The app used technology that samples
audio signatures by identifying the
unique blend of pitch, tone, volume,
tune, voice, instruments and all the
other elements that make up a song’s
fingerprint. It then leaves a copy of the
fingerprint – along with the names of
the rights holders, from the performer to
the songwriter, the publishing company
and the record label – on the Ethereum
blockchain. The blockchain is like a vast
irrevocable ledger, a record of ownership
that cannot be altered. Algorithms can
  Left: Del Naja’s studio setup includes (l-r) a Moog System 55, a DAW/Ableton Live (plus cup of tea), and a Neve Genesys
use this fingerprint to automatically
reconcile rights. If there’s any dispute,
the fingerprint is there – as full proof of
who should get paid.
“We’ve been working with music
companies and musicians to ensure
rights information is as accurate as
possible, but Massive Attack wanted
something slightly different,” explains
Barry. “The point about Fantom is that
it remixes songs largely based on
samples. Before the rights holders of
the sample allowed the band to use
their material on an app that remixes,
distorts and even adds elements,
they needed to be sure each time their
sample was played they’d get paid.”
Blokur devised a system that assigns
a signature to a track’s stems – the
individual channels such as vocal or
bassline – tagging every sample and
recording them on the blockchain. This
stem signature means that no matter
what new effects have been applied –
no matter how distorted or mashed up
it becomes as the AI remixes it – the
stem can still be identified.
With this resolved, the band hoped to
store the song stems in the cloud – to
be played by the Fantom platform in real
time. Melchior recruited Mick Grierson,
PHOTOGRAPHY: ANDREW MELCHIOR
Robert Del Naja and Andrew Melchior
discuss robotics and art for a
potential project with the Autodesk
AI team at Pier 9, via a Skype call
a computer scientist at Goldsmiths
College in London. Grierson specialises
in neural networks. They solve problems
in a similar way to a human brain – they
process inputs (“that’s a lion”); examine
them against patterns we already know
(“lions are creatures that kill”); and
generate outputs (“run away”). Like
humans, Grierson’s networks recognise
patterns – but only from the data sets
that they are trained on.
Intrigued by the remixing possibil-
ities of neural nets, Grierson’s team
developed one in Massive Attack’s
Bristol studio to build a generative
synthesiser: a neural network with
AIs that had been trained only on
Mezzanine. The networks can take any
input and process it as some version of
some part of the album. This synthesiser
allows anyone to modify any part of the
album, but can also be left on its own to
remix and adapt the songs in real time.
“The most interesting parts were the
mistakes the AI made,” Del Naja explains.
“You don’t want a perfect version of the
original audio to come out the other end.
You want it to combine the bass and the
harpsichord somehow, or the drums and
the vocal, to become one new sound, and
that’s all about the mistakes.”
In 2018, Mezzanine was 20 years old.
Now the band – Daddy G, Del Naja and
various collaborators – are heading out
on an anniversary tour with some of
the original singers, including Cocteau
Twins’ Elizabeth Fraser and stalwart
Horace Andy. “It’s because we messed
up the anniversary of Blue Lines,” Del
Naja explains. “We didn’t engage,
refused to get behind promoting, didn’t
do any live dates. That was 2011 and the
world was very different then. We’d lost
control of our back catalogue in deals
by labels with streaming services –
we’d all been sold off. So what do we do
now? How do we keep control?”
He decided to take a different
approach to Mezzanine – he would
repurpose the band’s own material,
altering the catalogue as he went. He Stephen Armstrong wrote about
also started to think of new ways of violence and crime in Glasgow in 01.19
sampling and recording – including
the use of synthetic DNA. “Repurpose
your own material into DNA and put that
into a spray paint can – that’s making
it into something new, then distrib-
uting in a whole new way,” Del Naja
explains. “If you store something on a
different medium, you change it. You’re
resampling on a molecular level, and
repurposing into something different.”
To achieve this, Melchior contacted
Swiss scientist Robert Grass, professor
at Zurich’s Functional Materials
Laboratory, who had been working on
a technique for coding books and music
using strands of DNA. Grass took the
four building blocks of DNA – adenine,
cytosine, guanine and thymine – and
converted binary digital signals into
a quaternary code, using adenine as
00, cytosine as 01, guanine as 10 and
thymine as 11, and coding the whole
album into strands of DNA.
Towards the end of 2018, the band
used this process to synthesise and
store thousands of copies of Mezzanine,
encoding them in tiny silicon beads,
which were then inserted into a spray
paint can. The beads are strong enough
to survive for thousands of years,
meaning graffiti artists could create
street art with paint that contains
millions of DNA versions of Mezzanine.
Currently, it would take a portable
real-time genetic sequencer roughly
a week to play the album.
“You could use a sequencer to
read the information in real-time and
generate a code that automatically
reverts to music,” says Grass. “That
would mean we wouldn’t need to use
huge server farms to store music.”
Melchior expects a future synthetic
DNA culture bank along the lines of
the Svalbard Global Seed Vault. “Our
civilisation could crash into dust and
rebuild itself using different technology,
meaning they couldn’t access our
computers or disks,” he says. “Since
every human has DNA, any future civili-
sation will probably try to work out how
to sequence DNA. If they can sequence
DNA, they can listen to Mezzanine. The
first thing a future civilisation could learn
about us might be Massive Attack.” 
JOHN
UNDERKOFFLER
MADE A
CAREER
OUT OF
DREAMING
UP WILD
HUMAN-
COMPUTER
I N T E R FAC E S
FOR
H O L LY W O O D
MOVIES
– UNTIL
REAL-WORLD
BUSINESSES
ASKED IF
HE COULD
AC T U A L LY
BUILD THEM
 I N T E R FAC E
VISUALIS
ATION
OBL
ONG

packed a bag, set off for the airport
and left Boston for good. An MIT PhD
research student who was obsessed by
data representation and user interfaces,
he was about to join his dream project
as the official science adviser for a new
movie called Minority Report.
Directed by Steven Spielberg, with
Tom Cruise playing the lead role, this
was a long- gestating adaptation of
a Philip K Dick short story located in
the Washington DC of 2054 – a future
where criminal activity has been all
but obliterated thanks to precogs,
psychics who can predict crimes before
they happen, and a specialist police
unit, PreCrime, which is licensed to
pre-emptively arrest criminals.
Embedded with the art department,
Underkoffler spent a year helping to
design the film’s futurescape. The brief
from Spielberg was to make the film’s
tech immediately visually legible. The
director also didn’t want typical “sci-fi
gadgets”. In his mind, the film was a noir,
and the tech should be based on devices
that were contemporary in 2001.
Underkoffler took a then brand-new
technology, E Ink, and extrapolated
this to foldable digital newspapers
seen in the film’s subway scene. Maglev
transportation tech, then in devel-
opment in Germany and Japan, became
the basis for the self-driving cars that
could move up the sides of buildings and
dock with individual apartments. New
technologies such as fMRI – functional
magnetic resonance imaging – inspired
the complex headgear by which the
dreams of the precogs were recorded.
The most challenging task facing the
production was the question of how to
visually represent the precog visions,
and how this data could be manipulated
by PreCrime chief John Anderton, played  
by Cruise. For that purpose Underkoffler
decided to adapt a technology he had
been developing called g-speak, a spatial
computing programme that allowed the
user to control on-screen pixels with
simple manual gestures.
G-speak had been inspired by the
research of Colombian-American neuro-
physiologist Rodolfo Llinás. Llinás writes
that as homo sapiens evolved as a species,
our awareness of our surroundings
increased so that we knew where to hunt,
when to eat, and when to run. Everything
that we see, taste, hear, sense and feel
is new information – and the more of
these inputs we can glean from our
environment, the better equipped we are
to deal with it. Underkoffler believes that
the same rules apply to user interfaces.
The more they are able to replicate how
humans interact with the world, the
more our interactions with computers
will come to feel natural and intuitive.
G-speak allows data to be shared across
multiple machines, surfaces (from
screens to tables) and users.
For Minority Report, Underkoffler
used his early research around g-speak
to develop a unique gestural interface
that was unlike anything previously seen
on screen. To demonstrate to Spielberg
and the cast how g-speak would work,
Underkoffler excused himself from the
film set for a few days, jerry-rigged a
green screen in a friend’s back garden,
and filmed himself executing sequences
of gestural commands. After watching
Underkoffler’s trial video, Spielberg
was enthused, ordering a script
re-write to allow more characters to
use Underkoffler’s interface.
G-speak takes centre stage in the
opening scenes, in which Cruise needs
to locate a would-be murderer as the
clock ticks down. Donning a pair of
interface-enabling gloves, Cruise
raises his arms like a conductor, and
the precog’s vision appears on a clear,
curved screen in front of him. We see
snatches of a woman in bed, an angry
man raising his arm, then stabbing
downwards. Cruise and his PreCrime
team know who will die, and when – but
not where the murder will take place.
LEFT: IN MINORITY REPORT, TOM CRUISE
D O N S I N T E R FAC E - E N A B L I N G G L OV E S
T O N AV I G A T E C L U E S I N A N I M P E N D I N G
MURDER RIGHT: JOHN UNDERKOFFLER
 Holding his left hand up, palm
towards him, thumb and first two fingers
outstretched like a pistol, Cruise is able
to pause the video. By sweeping his
hands to the right, as if trying to toss
a paper ball into a bin, he dismisses
the image on screen. By extending two
fingers, then tracing a loop in the air, he
spreads out a digital file with mugshots
of possible perpetrators. It’s a flurry of
movements, fluid and natural, each
bearing Underkoffler’s signature.
Cruise’s character is required to
zoom in on a newspaper that has
been left on the lawn of the victim’s
home. Underkoffler had not designed
a specific zoom movement, so he and
Cruise pondered what to do. “What if I
did this?” said Cruise, extending his left
arm towards the giant curved screen
and bending his wrist so the left hand
formed a “stop” at the end of the arm.
By sliding his right hand along his arm,
he could access different zoom levels.
“My arm is like a UI slider.”
In the wake of the critical and box
office success of Minority Report,
Underkoffler was recruited to work
on a number of blockbusters. For Hulk
(2003), he was asked to conceive the
gamma-radiation accident that leaves
Bruce Banner with an angry green giant
residing inside him. On Aeon Flux (2005),
Underkoffler pondered what possible
building material might be used in an
isolated city in an otherwise ruined
world – bamboo, it turned out.
Following the release of Minority
Report in 2002, Underkoffler had also
begun receiving calls from Fortune 500
companies, including Accenture, Wells
Fargo and Fujitsu, inquiring whether
the tech they had seen on the cinema
screen was real. And if g-speak wasn’t
real, well, could Underkoffler develop it
for them? After the fourth or fifth call
asking the same question, he started to
think it might be an idea to get back into
the lab and give it a go.
As his six years in Hollywood rolled
by, Underkoffler felt the urge to return
to his unfinished research projects
growing, until it became irresistible. “To
spend a year of one’s life [working on a
film]… that commitment should be more
directly meaningful and more personal,”
he says. “I’m a designer and engineer,
and obsessed with user interface. I felt
like I had to get back to it.”
His mission wouldn’t be restricted to
developing data-sharing technology;
he wanted to change how we interact
with computers entirely. More than 30
years after the advent of the Apple Mac
operating system, interfaces have mostly
remained unchanged. Yet since 1984,
memory, graphics power, processor
speeds and disk capacity have been
magnified by between 10,000 and one
million per cent. Despite these advances,
how we interface with computers has
barely changed in those decades.
The mistake, Underkoffler argues,
wasn’t that we got user interfaces
wrong back in 1984, but that they
stopped evolving. An upgrade was long
overdue, he believed. In 2006, he left
Hollywood, founded Oblong Industries
and dedicated himself to bringing the
g-speak interface to the world.
Underkoffler spent his childhood on a
farm 55 kilometres outside Philadelphia.
His mother had trained as a nurse, and
his father worked in a family-owned
company manufacturing synthetic tights
after the Second World War.
Growing up, Underkoffler and his two
brothers had free rein over 44 hectares
of fields and woodland – in the middle 
of which he came across an old dump,
housing the refuse of the previous
half-century. “There were these beautiful
old glass bottles,” Underkoffler recalls.
“It was a decaying record of life from
the past five decades. It was an amazing
history lesson.” To Underkoffler, these
bottles represented a past that was not
restricted to a museum display case or
a textbook, but something that he could
hold and feel in his hands.
In 1980, his parents invested in their
first home computer, an Apple II Plus,
and Underkoffler began writing code
in every spare moment. “There was a
fantastic computer enthusiast magazine
called Softalk,” he explains. “It would
publish programmes in machine
language and you’d type them in. The
beautiful thing about these machines is
that you could become the custodian of
this entire, infinitely expandable world.”
Five years later, Underkoffler enrolled
at the MIT Media Lab, set up that year to
encourage collaborative research across
a range of disciplines, from technology
to media, art and design. “There was a
perpetual amount of excitement,” he
remembers. “It was like being in the
inside of a neutron star.” One of his
lecturers was Muriel Cooper, a graphic
designer who ran the Visible Language
Workshop. She believed that society was
moving away from a focus on mecha-
nised processes and placing a new value
on raw information – requiring new ways
of visualising and communicating data.
Cooper’s design philosophy was the
inspiration behind the early versions of
g-speak. In 1998 Underkoffler created the
Luminous Room, a project in which the
ordinary lightbulb was replaced with
internet-connected projector cameras,
dubbed “I/O Bulbs”. The idea was that
by enabling data to be projected on to
any surface in a room, this data would
be liberated from the computer screen,
and, for the first time, situated in the
real world. This also meant that data
could be manipulated without a mouse
or keyboard. As such, it was one of the
earliest hints of the capabilities of what
would eventually become g-speak.
One exploration of the Luminous
Room was the “Chess & Bottle system”,
which allowed text, images and live video
to be displayed on screen – then, with
a particular gesture (in this instance,
turning a vase 180 degrees), the data
would be incorporated into a vessel
transported across the screen, and
unpacked on the far side. If the glass
bottles of Underkoffler’s youth had
brought him information from another
time, the g-speak glass vessels were
able to transport data of many different
mediums in real time.
Urp was another project that used the
I/O Bulb – deployed by an architectural
design tool to project digital shadows
on to a workbench. The shadows would
lengthen and shorten depending on
the placement of small architectural
models. This allows designers to see
the shadow that a building would cast
at any particular latitude, season or time
of day. The simulated material could
also be changed, so that in one instant a
shadow formed by a brick wall could be
displayed, and in the next, the reflection
from a glass partition of the same size.
Inspired by the Media Lab’s ethos,
Underkoffler’s ideology around user
interfaces drew from various sources.
He cites science fiction author William
Gibson’s writing on a shared virtual
environment that melds virtual space
with virtually enhanced physical objects
– cyberspace, or the “metaverse”. The
1981 Atari arcade game Tempest, in
which the player shoots geometric
shapes, was another influence. Both
L E F T : J O H N U N D E R KO F F L E R A N D A 4 5 - S C R E E N D I S P L AY
RIGHT: IN 1998, THE MIT I/O BULB COULD PROJECT
L I V E , A DA P TA B L E DATA O N TO R E A L - WO R L D S U R FAC E S
share the distinction of rejecting the
“real world” that we recognise every
day in favour of surreal visuals that can
be manipulated in unconventional ways
– something that Underkoffler was to
make reality with the Luminous Room
project. Who previously had thought of
storing videos in a vase, after all?
in a first floor office off Shoreditch
High Street. Oblong employs some
120 people, and provides software to
150 of the Fortune 500 companies.
Padraig Scully, Oblong’s technical
account manager, leads me into a
conference room with six screens set
into the walls. This, Scully explains, is
Oblong’s prime product: Mezzanine, a
video-conferencing software that runs
on g-speak and allows team members
to share and manipulate each other’s
on-screen data, live. It’s used by more
than 150 customers on six continents,
including JLL and Inmarsat in London,
and Boeing and Nasa in the US.
In Oblong’s LA headquarters, Under-
koffler is waiting to take our call in a
room with its own Mezanine setup.
This, he tells me, is the antidote to
irksome corporate meetings in which
a single person hogs the only USB
port, subjecting their colleagues to
a dry PowerPoint presentation. To
demonstrate this, Scully pulls up fake
architectural blueprints. They appear
on the three horizontal screens, to the
right of our live link to Underkoffler, who
can now also see them on his screen.
Mezzanine runs on g-speak, but
instead of Cruise’s sensor-embedded
gloves, it is controlled by a wand – a
sleek remote that uses infrared sensors
in the ceiling. In order to use the wand
to manipulate the data on the screen,
each pixel is given an x, y and z co-
ordinate instead of the usual numerical
code, allowing it to be controlled via 3D
movements. By pressing a button on the
wand and moving the device towards
the screen, I am able to zoom in on a
section of the blueprints. Holding the
same button down and drawing a square
around the image produces a screen
grab. The grab appears in a bank of saved
images at the bottom of our screen. By
clicking on it again, I’m able to drag it
on to the left-most screen.
The three screens now display my
screen grab, the live link with Under-
koffler, and the original blueprints. In
LA, Underkoffler can see the exact same
information. And using his own wand,
he’s able to draw on top of my grab,
highlighting a particular section.
Next, Scully turns to a whiteboard
at the back of the room and writes
a message to Underkoffler. Using the
wand again, he’s able to photograph
the board and transport the message
to the screen. In LA, Underkoffler is able
to use his own whiteboard to write on
top of Scully’s words or scrub them out
entirely. Scully then pulls up a series of
mock designs for a range of fictional fruit
drinks. On screen, he is able to underlay
different logos into mock iPhone, web
and billboard adverts. Using the wand
he moves them to the three vertical side
screens, where we’re able to instantly
compare them: the electronic equivalent
of pinning printouts to a cork board.
By allowing information to be
manipulated by an entire creative
team at once, Mezzanine seeks to make
meetings more efficient. There is no
need to pause while designers re-work
an idea, or latecomers wait for an extra
printout. As Underkoffler explains:
“Projects that previously took five weeks  
can now be completed in five hours.”
Not only that, he argues, but it allows
corporations to share ideas in a 3D space.
Underkoffler holds up a smartphone.
“It’s horrible that everything I want to
see has to be on this little screen,” he
says. “Some things require more seeing.”
BELOW: JOHN UNDERKOFFLER IN
OBLONG’S LOS ANGELES HQ
very much the home of the down
-and-outs. Oblong Industries has had
its HQ in the neighbouring Arts District
since 2008. Other startups moved
there only recently, along with sushi
restaurants and a brewing company. It
is a favourite area for film crews, with
fake shoot-outs and car chases taking
place on a near-weekly basis. Recently,
Underkoffler remarks, a petrol station
appeared nearby, much to the elation of
his staff. A week later, it blew up. It had
been a movie set all along.
The Oblong HQ is a warehouse space
with open-plan workstations and
beautiful, 100-year-old wooden roof
beams. In previous lives, Underkoffler
has discovered, it was a sweatshop,
and a pornographer’s set. Today it is a
bright, modern space with swathes of
coloured paint on the walls, and a stack
of bicycles next to a dining area that
resembles a trendy coffee shop. Banks
of computer monitors hold the attention
of employees in chinos and T-shirts,
code scrolling across their screens.
In Underkoffler’s office, a small
space on the top floor, he discusses the
transition from an academic researcher
to the leader of a company developing
usable tech for a real-world market.
“As a researcher, it’s your job to invent
new ways of looking at the world, and
you do so with a set of theories about
what’ll be useful,” he says as he pours
coffee. “But you’re not actually limited by
on-the-ground details that would affect
usability. In the commercial realm, those
details are intensely critical.”
In other words, should your ground-
breaking new tech design not fit
consumer requirements, it has little
use. By the same token, Underkoffler
believes that putting too much focus
on real-world applications can limit
creativity. As in most things, a balance
between optimism and pragmatism
offers the best approach.
A case in point is Oblong’s work
for Saudi Aramco. The company’s
GigaPOWERS system is the world’s
most sophisticated oil and gas reservoir
simulator. The problem was that the
stakeholders, drilling foreman and
engineers, all needed to interact
with the system in real time, and on
a massive visual scale. Three abutted
high-definition projectors were used to
visualise the relevant reservoir, allowing
developers to ask questions like: “What
happens to production if we move that
wellhead 500 metres north?” The system
would let anyone pick it up and move it
on screen, and see what would happen.
Fo r G e n e ra l E l e c t r i c , O b l o n g
constructed an interactive map of a
smart grid energy management system.
Problems included finding the best way
to navigate the space; how to zoom in
from national to street level to view
downed power lines in real time; and
how to allow a variety of workers to
use the system at once, each working
on different tasks and using a range of
input modalities, from smart wands to
tablets and web browsers.
The majority of such problems are
tackled at Oblong’s R&D and Proto-
typing Warehouse, a 15-minute walk
from the Arts District office. Two-thirds
of the warehouse space operates as a
traditional storage facility, with stacks
of wooden crates ready to be loaded into
lorries and shipped around the world;
the rest is where the developers live.
On a typical day, ten engineers work
at the back of the warehouse space. In
the corner of this zone stands a vast
semi-circle comprising 45 screens,
reaching some two metres high and
all but enclosing a user inside. The
set-up boasts over 90 million pixels.
As a demonstration, engineer Pete
Hawkins pulls up a representation of
the Earth, with coloured dots hovering
around the surface. These, he explains,
denote seismic data. They are arranged
by magnitude: dots further out are the
less common, larger earthquakes; those
closer are smaller, more frequent quakes.
Colours indicate the depth of the quakes.
Blue is shallow, red something to worry
about. The potential life-saving applica-
tions of such a system are immediately
obvious, promoting analysis in a way
that’s difficult to do with a spreadsheet.
“Our goal is to get beyond columns
of data,” Hawkins explains. “In an Excel
spreadsheet, our experience with the
data is limited. By putting this in human
terms we get more of a human take.”
To date, Oblong’s most successful
collaboration has been with IBM. In
particular, building a visual face for
its abstract Watson technology. The
solution was the bank of 45 screens, with
visuals displaying stock market data in
real time as a swirl of brightly coloured
pixels, each representing a particular
market trend. Geometry had again
afforded an elegant solution.
“People ask about a portable VR
version [of the software], but that’s not
a shared experience,” explains B Cavello,
from Watson. “When you’re making
decisions, and checking people’s facial
expression to see everyone is on the same
page, that level of disconnect doesn’t
really work. Having a space where you
can have a conversation and navigate the
content immersively is really valuable.”
Underkoffler believes that for g-speak
to fully realise its capabilities, new user
interface technology needs to appear
ABOVE: SAUDI ARAMCO’S GIGAPOWERS
S YS T E M I N T E R FAC E , C R E AT E D BY O B L O N G
TO SIMULATE OIL AND GAS RESERVOIRS
everywhere, not just in conference
rooms. Should larger technology
companies get on board, he believes
g-speak could become ubiquitous in
as little as two years. Underkoffler
mentions Microsoft in passing, but
cannot discuss specific companies or
details of any discussions that they may
– or may not – have had.
“I’ve been wondering for a while
what’s the right place to ignite the
conversation around user interface and
extending human capability,” he muses.
“I’m not convinced that the place to do
it is in a computer science context. It
occurred to me that experimental archi-
tects are the minds that are [best] set
up to talk about spacial interface, [and
the] social and cognitive interactions
that architecture already designs for.”
Whether or not we’re all using
g-speak by 2021, the future of user inter-
faces is likely already in front of us, and
may be more simple than it seems. “If
we don’t know how to design something,
we ask what people would do in the real
world, with other people,” Underkoffler
says. “That is always the answer.” 
Tom Ward wrote about Anthony Geffen’s
Atlantic Productions in 11.18
LEFT: THE REMOTE
WAND THAT CONTROLS
MEZZANINE G-SPEAK
 

THE

CREATIVITY
CODE
FL ASHES OF INSPIRATION ARE CONSIDERED A HUMAN GIFT
T H AT D R I V E S I N N O VAT I O N – B U T T H E M O N O P O LY I S O V E R
AI CAN BE PROGRAMMED TO INVENT AND REFINE IDEAS
A N D C O N N E C T I O N S. W I L L M A C H I N E S D E V E L O P I N G E N U I T Y ?

BY M A RC U S DU SAU T OY
PHOTOGRAPHY: LEVON BISS | ILLUSTRATION: BERKE YAZICIOGLU
 Mathematician and author Marcus Du Sautoy,
photographed by WIRED in London, January 2019

“THE CHIEF
ENEMY OF
CREATIVITY
IS
GOOD SENSE”.
PABLO
PICASSO
The value placed on creativity in modern
times has led to a range of writers and
thinkers trying to articulate what it
is, how to stimulate it, and why it is
important. It was while sitting on a
committee at the Royal Society assessing
what impact machine learning was likely
to have on society in the coming decades
that I first encountered the theories of
Margaret Boden. Her ideas struck me
as the most relevant when it came to
addressing creativity in machines.
Boden is an original thinker who
has managed to fuse many disciplines:
philosopher, psychologist, physician,
AI expert and cognitive scientist. In her
eighties now, with white hair flying like
sparks and an ever active brain, she is
enjoying engaging enthusiastically with
the prospect of what these “tin cans”,
as she likes to call computers, might be
capable of. To this end, she has identified
three different types of human creativity.
Exploratory creativity involves taking
what is there and exploring its outer
edges, extending the limits of what is
possible while remaining bound by the
rules. Bach’s music is the culmination of
a journey Baroque composers embarked
on to explore tonality by weaving
together different voices. His preludes
and fugues push what is possible before
breaking the genre open and entering the
Classical era of Mozart and Beethoven.
Renoir and Pissarro re-conceived how
we could visualise the world around
us, but it was Monet who really pushed
the boundaries, painting his water lilies
over and over until his flecks of colour
dissolved into a new form of abstraction.
Mathematics revels in this type of
creativity. The classification of finite

simple groups is a tour de force of
exploratory creativity. Starting from
the simple definition of a group of
symmetries – a structure defined by
four simple axioms – mathematicians
spent 150 years producing a list of every
conceivable element of symmetry,
culminating in the discovery of the
Monster Symmetry Group, which has
more symmetries than there are atoms
in the Earth and yet fits into no pattern
of other groups. This form of mathe-
matical creativity involves pushing the
limits while adhering to the rules of the
game. It is like the explorer who thrusts
into the unknown but is still bound by
the limits of our planet.
Boden believes that exploration
accounts for 97 per cent of human
creativity. This is the sort of creativity
that is perfect for a computational
mechanism that can perform many more
calculations than the human brain. But
is it enough? When we think of truly
original creative acts, we generally
imagine something utterly unexpected.
The second sort of creativity involves
combination. Think of how an artist
might take two completely different
constructs and seek to combine them.
Often the rules governing one world will
suggest an interesting framework for the
other. Combination is a powerful tool in
the realm of mathematical creativity.
The eventual solution of the Poincaré
Conjecture, which describes the possible
shapes of our universe, was arrived
at by applying very different tools to
understand flow over surfaces. It was
the creative genius of Grigori Perelman
that realised the way a liquid flows over
a surface could unexpectedly help to
classify the surfaces that might exist.
My research takes tools from number
theory to understand primes and applies
them to classify possible symmetries.
The symmetries of geometric objects at
first sight don’t look like numbers. But
applying the language that has helped
us navigate the mysteries of the primes,
and replacing primes by symmetrical
objects, has revealed surprising insights
into the theory of symmetry.
The arts have also benefited greatly
from this form of cross-fertilisation.
Philip Glass took ideas he learned from
working with Ravi Shankar and used
them to create the additive process that
is at the heart of his minimalist music.
Zaha Hadid combined her knowledge of
architecture with her love of the pure
forms of the Russian painter Kazimir
Malevich to create a unique style of
curvaceous buildings. In cooking, too,
creative master chefs have fused cuisines
from opposite ends of the globe.
There are interesting hints that this
sort of creativity might also be perfect
for the world of AI. Take an algorithm
that plays the blues and combine it with
the music of Boulez and you will end up
with a strange hybrid composition that
might just create a new sound world.
Of course, it could also be a dismal
cacophony. The coder needs to find two
genres that can be fused algorithmically
in an interesting way.
It is Margaret Boden’s third form of
creativity that is the more mysterious
and elusive, and that is transforma-
tional creativity. This describes those
rare moments that are complete
gamechangers. Every art form has these
gear shifts. Think of Picasso and Cubism,
Schoenberg and atonality, Joyce and
modernism. These moments are like
phase changes, as when water suddenly
goes from a liquid to a solid.
This was the image that Goethe hit on
when he sought to describe wrestling
for two years with how to write The
Sorrows of Young Werther, only for a
chance event to act as a sudden catalyst:
“At that instant, the plan of Werther was
found; the whole shot together from all
directions, and became a solid mass,
as the water in a vase, which is just at
WE HAVE AN
AWFUL HABIT
OF ROMANTICISING
CREATIVE GENIUS.
THE SOLITARY ARTIST
IS A MY TH

the freezing point, is changed by the
slightest concussion into ice.”
Quite often these transformational
moments hinge on changing the rules
of the game, or dropping an assumption
that previous generations had been
working under. The square of a number
is always positive. All molecules come
in long lines not chains. Music must
be written inside a harmonic scale
structure. Faces have eyes on either
side of the nose. At first glance it would
seem hard to program such a decisive
break, and yet there is a meta-rule for
this type of creativity. You start by
dropping constraints and see what
emerges. The art, the creative act, is
Above, from left : Beethoven, Bach and Mozart look down on a “torus”, an element in the geometry of the Poincaré conjecture

to choose what to drop or what fresh
constraint to introduce such that you
end up with a new thing of value.
If I were asked to identify a transfor-
mational moment in mathematics, the
creation of the square root of minus one
in the mid-16th century would be a good
candidate. This was a number that many
mathematicians believed did not exist. It
was referred to as an imaginary number
(a derogatory term Descartes came up
with to indicate that of course there was
no such thing). And yet its creation did
not contradict previous mathematics.
It turned out it had been our mistake to
exclude it. How can a computer come up
with the concept of the square root of
minus one when the data it is fed will tell
it that there is no number whose square
can be negative? A truly creative act
sometimes requires us to step outside
the system and create a new reality. Can
a complex algorithm do that?
The emergence of the Romantic
movement in music is in many ways
a catalogue of rule breaking. Instead
of moving between close key signa-
tures as Classical composers had done,
upstarts like Schubert chose to shift
key in ways that deliberately broke
expectations. Schumann left chords
unresolved that Haydn or Mozart would
have felt the need to complete. Chopin
in turn composed dense moments of
 

chromatic runs and challenged rhythmic
expectations with his unusual accented
passages and bending of tempos. The
move from one musical movement to
another – from Medieval to Baroque to
Classical to Romantic to Impressionist
to Expressionist and beyond – is a story
of breaking the rules. Each movement
is dependent on the one before to
appreciate its creativity. It almost goes
without saying that historical context
plays an important role in allowing us
to define something as new. Creativity
is not an absolute but a relative activity.
We are creative within our culture
and frame of reference.
Can a computer initiate this kind of
phase change and move us into a new
musical or mathematical state? That
seems a challenge. Algorithms learn
how to act based on the data that they
interact with. Won’t this mean that they
will always be condemned to producing
more of the same?
As Picasso once said: “The chief enemy
of creativity is good sense.” That sounds
on the face of it very much against the
spirit of the machine. And yet you can
program a system to behave irrationally.
You can create a meta-rule that will
instruct it to change course. As we shall
see, this is in fact something machine
learning is quite good at.
covering his creative tracks. Gauss is
credited with creating modern number
theory with the publication in 1798 of
one of the great mathematical works of
all time: Disquisitiones Arithmeticae.
When people tried to read the book to
uncover where he got his ideas, they
were mystified. The work has been
described as a book of seven seals. Gauss
seems to pull ideas, like rabbits, out of
a hat, without ever really giving us an
inkling of how he achieved this magic.
When challenged, he retorted that an
architect does not leave the scaffolding
after the house is complete. Gauss, like
Ramanujan, attributed one revelation to
“the grace of God”, saying he was “unable
to name the nature of the thread which
connected what I previously knew with
that which made my success possible”.
Yet the fact that an artist may be
unable to articulate where their ideas
came from does not mean that they
followed no rules. Art is a conscious
expression of the myriad of logical gates
that make up our unconscious thought
processes. There was of course a thread
of logic that connected Gauss’s thoughts:
it was just hard for him to articulate what
he was up to – or perhaps he wanted to
preserve the mystery, to fuel his image
as a creative genius. Coleridge’s claim
that the drug-induced vision of “Kubla
Khan” came to him in its entirety belies
all the preparatory material that shows
the poet working on the ideas before that
fateful day when he was interrupted by
the person from Porlock. Of course, this
makes for a good story. Even my own
account of creation will focus on the flash
of inspiration rather than the years of
preparatory work I put in.
We have an awful habit of roman-
ticising creative genius. The solitary
artist is frankly a myth. In most instances
what looks like a step change is actually
a continuous growth. Brian Eno talks

CAN CREATIVITY BE TAUGHT?

Many artists like to fuel their own
creation myth, appealing to external
forces as responsible for their creativity.
In Ancient Greece poets were said to be
possessed by the muses, who breathed
inspiration into the minds of men,
sometimes sending them insane in
the process. For Plato, “a poet is holy,
and never able to compose until he has
become inspired, and is beside himself
and reason is no longer in him… for no
art does he utter but by power divine”.
Ramanujan, the great Indian mathe-
matician, likewise attributed his
great insights to ideas he received in
his dreams from his family goddess
Namagiri. Is creativity a form of
madness or a gift of the divine?
One of my mathematical heroes, Carl
Friedrich Gauss, was one of the worst at

Top : mathematician Carl Friedrich Gauss. Above : can a machine program creativity?

about the idea of “scenius”, not genius, to
acknowledge the community from which
creative intelligence often emerges. The
American writer Joyce Carol Oates
agrees: “Creative work, like scientific
work, should be greeted as a communal
effort – an attempt by an individual to
give voice to many voices, an attempt
to synthesize and explore and analyse.”
What does it take to stimulate
creativity? Might it be possible to
program it into a machine? Are there
rules we can follow to become creative?
Can creativity, in other words, be a
learned skill? Some would say that to
teach or program is to show people how
to imitate what has gone before, and that
imitation and rule-following are both
incompatible with creativity. And yet we
have examples of creative individuals all
around us who have studied and learned
and improved their skills. If we study
what they do, could we imitate them and
ultimately become creative ourselves?
These are questions I find myself
asking every term. To receive their PhDs,
doctoral candidates in mathematics have
to create a new mathematical construct.
They have to come up with something
that has never been done before. My
task is to teach them how to do that. Of
course, at some level they have been
training to do this already. Solving
problems involves personal creativity
even if the answer is already known.
That training is an absolute pre–
requisite for the jump into the unknown.
By rehearsing how others have come to
their breakthroughs you hope to provide
the environment to foster your own
creativity. And yet that jump is far from
guaranteed. I can’t take anyone off the
street and teach them to be a creative
mathematician. Maybe with ten years
of training, but not every brain seems
able to achieve mathematical creativity.
Some people appear able to achieve
creativity in one field but not another, yet
it is difficult to understand what makes
one brain a chess champion and another
a Nobel-winning novelist.
Margaret Boden recognises that
creativity isn’t just about being Shake-
speare or Einstein. She distinguishes
between what she calls “psychological

EDUCATION AND
BUSINESS,
BOTH REALMS
THAT ABHOR
FAILURE,
ARE OFTEN
TERRIBLE
ENVIRONMENTS
FOR FOSTERING
CREATIVITY
creativity” and “historical creativity”.
Many of us achieve acts of personal
creativity that may be novel to us
but historically old news. These are
what Boden calls moments of psycho-
logical creativity. It is by repeated acts
of personal creativity that ultimately
one hopes to produce something that
is recognised by others as new and
of value. While historical creativity
is rare, it emerges from encouraging
psychological creativity.
My recipe for eliciting creativity
in students follows the three modes
of creativity that Boden identified.
Exploration is perhaps the most obvious
path. First understand how we’ve come
to the place we are now and then try
to push the boundaries just a little bit
further. This involves deep immersion
in what we have created to date. Out of
that deep understanding might emerge
something never seen before. It is often
important to impress on students that
there isn’t very often some big bang
that resounds with the act of creation.
It is gradual. As Van Gogh wrote: “Great
things are not done by impulse but by a
series of small things brought together.”
Boden’s second strategy, combina-
tional creativity, is a powerful weapon,
I find, in stimulating new ideas. I
often encourage students to attend
seminars and read papers in subjects
that don’t appear to connect with
the problem they are tackling. A line
of thought from a disparate bit of the
mathematical universe might resonate
with the problem at hand and stimulate
a new idea. Some of the most creative
bits of science are happening today at
the junctions between the disciplines.
The more we can come out of our silos
and share our ideas and problems,
the more creative we are likely to be.
This is where a lot of the low-hanging
fruit is to be found.
At first sight transformational
creativity seems hard to harness as a
strategy. But again the goal is to test
the status quo by dropping some of the
constraints that have been put in place.
Try seeing what happens if we change
one of the basic rules we have accepted
as part of the fabric of our subject. These
are dangerous moments because you
can collapse the system, but this brings
me to one of the most important ingre-
dients needed to foster creativity – and
that is embracing failure.
Unless you are prepared to fail, you
will not take the risks that will allow
you to break out and create something
new. This is why our education system
and our business environment, both
realms that abhor failure, are often
terrible environments for fostering
creativity. It is important to celebrate
the failures as much as the successes
in my students. Sure, the failures won’t
make it into the PhD thesis, but we learn
so much from failure. When I meet my
students I repeat again and again Samuel
Beckett’s call to “fail again, fail better”.
Are these strategies that can be
written into code? In the past the
top-down approach to coding meant
there was little prospect of creativity
in the output of the code. Coders were
never too surprised by what their
algorithms produced. There was no
room for experimentation or failure.
But this all changed recently: because an
algorithm, built on code that learns from
its failures, did something that was new,
shocked its creators, and had incredible
value. This algorithm won a game that
many believed was beyond the abilities
of a machine to master. It was a game
that required creativity to play.
It was the news of this breakthrough
that triggered my recent existential
crisis as a mathematician. 
This is an edited extract from Marcus Du
Sautoy’s new book, The Creativity Code,
published on March 7 (HarperCollins)
By David Baker

Photography: James Day

discovering how magic helps us

better understand the

human brain
 

pull out the seven of spades and show it to him.

He gets me to sign my name on it. Then he
slides it back into the pack, puts the cards
back in their box and puts the box on the
table in front of us. “Now,” he says with a
grin, “the magic begins.” Filho is 51, tall,
handsome and infectiously enthusiastic
about the power of illusions. Born in
Brazil, he’s been a keen magician since
adolescence. He came to Britain in 2012
to work in advertising before, in 2015,
setting up Abracademy, to bring magic
– and, in particular, the skills needed
to perform it – to the rest of us. “I think
magic has a such a positive twist,” he
says. “It brings this soft approach that’s
hard to explain, this role of creating
something beautiful.”
But he is also fascinated by the
relationship between magic and neuroscience and
psychology, and set up Academy Labs to explore this
connection. “Magic has lived in the ‘glitches’ of the
brain for a long time,” he says: “How you see things,
how you form beliefs, how you experience wonder.
And it has the capacity to create wonder by creating
something that people can’t explain. You just say
‘Wow’, and then comes: ‘How do you do that?’ So
we explore what happens when we experience
something like that. We’re very interested in going
deep, deep down into the brain.”
On this summer afternoon at Abracademy’s base
in Hackney’s Container Park, Filho has been trying
to create something beautiful, and new. We stand on
either side of a small felt-topped table – the cards in
their box between us – and Filho is a little nervous.
“Now, there are three ways we could get your card
out of the box,” he says. “We could use telekinesis
and draw it out… but we’re not going to do that. We
could make it rise up to the top of the pack… but
HAND MODEL: JONATHAN @ HIRED HANDS. SUIT & SHIRT: BEGGARS RUN

we’re not going to do that. Or...” He looks me in the

eye, that grin turning into puzzlement. “Do you hear
that? Do you hear anything?”
To be honest, at first I don’t. I’m confused for a
second. And then, a faint buzzing, as if Container
OPENING SPREAD: SET DESIGN: VICKY LEES.

Park has a wasp problem. It’s getting louder and it’s

a little alarming. “Look behind you,” says Filho, with
mock amazement. “What’s that?”
Flying gently towards me from the far end of
the room is a drone, with my signed card hanging
by a wire. The room collapses into laughter and
applause, and a big sense of relief. “We really
weren’t sure if it was going to work,” Filho admits.

RUBENS FILHO is a magician and founder of Abracademy

00 0
 GUSTAV KUHN is exploring how magic tricks can dislodge deeply held beliefs

or much of human history, science and magic

were practically the same thing. In the
late 19th century, psychologists were
intrigued by stage magicians and
seance psychics and their ability to play
with the minds of their audiences.
And magicians returned the favour,
snapping up scientific innovations
in optics and electromagnetism.
That all changed in the 20th century.
“From about 1910 there was very little study
of magic,” says Gustav Kuhn, 44, a reader in
psychology at Goldsmiths, University of London –
and a professional magician. “That was probably
because of the influence of behaviourism. Magic
is all about experiences; behaviourists were more
interested in actions and reactions,” he says. “For
me, there was always a very close link between
magic and psychology. To be a good magician you
really need to understand how the brain works.”
Kuhn grew up in Switzerland and moved to
Britain in 1993 to work as a magician. He “fell into”
academia. “I was lucky to meet some researchers
who were using eye-tracking technology to study
how attention can be misdirected. And soon I
realised that magic provides us with a really useful
tool to study some of these perceptual areas.”
We don’t see things literally happening in front of
our eyes, says Kuhn, because the brain is a brilliant
economiser of resources. “We have to filter out
information, otherwise we would get overwhelmed.
The brain selects the stuff that’s really important. So
we can be looking at something, but the information
doesn’t reach our conscious experience.”
Try this by looking at the wall opposite you.
Unless you have been thinking about decorating,
you will notice marks that you were unaware of. It’s
not that photons from those marks never landed
on your retina. It’s just that the brain discarded that
data as unimportant. Magicians have understood mouth,” he says, “go to light it, and then notice it
this phenomenon for centuries: in many illusions, was the wrong way round.” He mimes astonishment.
the sleight of hand is not hidden – but we don’t “So I take it out and, at the same time, move my
notice. Most magicians will tell you that they other hand, holding the lighter, down to table level,
achieve this “misdirection” by getting the audience and drop the lighter into my lap. I then move
to look away when the rabbit is popped into the hat. that hand up to my line of sight, snap my fingers
Kuhn suspected otherwise – and decided to use and, hey presto, the lighter had disappeared.”
magic to prove that when magicians palm a coin or Not that great a trick, as Kuhn is the first to
switch cards, we are looking directly at them. He acknowledge. But from a perceptual point of view,
set up in the University of Sussex students’ union the magic was just about to happen. At the same
bar with a cigarette, lighter (this was before the time as snapping his fingers, he simply let go of the
UK’s smoking ban) and eye-tracker, and performed cigarette with his other hand, so it fell into his lap.
a simple illusion. “I would put a cigarette in my He then stared at that hand as if the cigarette had
vanished. “What we found,” he says, “is that most
people would not see the cigarette falling, including
some looking directly at it. We had shown that what


people see is not related to where they are looking.”

This has big implications. “Take driving,” he
says. “We used to think that mobile phone use was
distracting because people were taking their eyes off
the road. But what this research tells us is that it’s
not about where you’re looking, it’s about your mind
being distracted. Really, we should ban everybody
from holding conversations on the phone. If your
mind is distracted, you simply don’t see things.”
Inattentional blindness is now a huge research
area. But Kuhn is even more interested in what is
perhaps a more alarming aspect of magic: how it
can easily dislodge what we think are deeply held
beliefs. “It’s usually assumed that beliefs are almost
like traits, things that are very hard to shift,” he
says. “A lot of the studies on belief are correlational,
as it’s difficult to manipulate belief in an ethical way.
But magic is all about pushing the boundaries of
what people believe to be possible, and it provides
us with a very useful tool to see whether we can
actually change beliefs. And what we are finding
now is that there are experiments that can.”
Gustav Kuhn
lmost all magicians will tell you that magic
takes place not during the illusion
itself but in the time afterwards, when
the brain tries to make sense of what
it has seen. In the café at Goldsmiths,
where Abracademy Labs has its base,
I meet its head, Kuhn’s colleague
Hugo Caffaratti. An Argentinian-born
magician and neuroscientist, Caffaratti
is, like Kuhn, confident about magic’s
potential as a means of scientific research – a tool
for examining the messiness of real life.
“Psychology,” Caffaratti says, “is fascinated by
things such as, say, the gaps in our perception that
lead us to wander around looking for our glasses
when they are on our heads. But how do you take
that into the lab? Well, with just a deck of cards
and a little table you have millions of illusions that
play on the same gaps in our perception and can be
repeated in exactly the same way, again and again.”
Caffaratti was captivated by magic as a child.

MAGIC MOMENT
By 21 he was admitted to the Spanish Society of
Illusionists, where he met Francisco-Amilcar Riega
Bello, known to everyone as Amilkar. He showed
Some of the best tricks involve no marked cards or disappearing Caffaratti that magic is “not about being fast with
rabbits, just misdirection and a sense of theatre. Here’s one. your hands. It’s about attacking the brain.”
The Spanish school argued that magic was
entirely about exploiting what Filho calls the
“glitches” of the brain, the vulnerabilities of the
way we perceive the world and ourselves, and
which we, for the most part, are unaware of. We
perceive only a fraction of what is around us. (Kuhn
reckons it is as little as ten per cent.) Our memories
1. Ask someone to 2. Fan the cards so 3. Take out two and even our core beliefs are ridiculously malleable.
check and shuffle only you see them. cards; put them And our choices – as any magician asking us to “pick
a pack of cards. Note the two at the to one side. If the a card, any card” knows – may be much less free
Make sure they rear, furthest from rear cards were a than we think. Perception, memory, free will: these
understand there you (on the far left black six and a red are weapons in the hands of a skilled magician.
is nothing odd or right, according two, remove a red “Magic breaks the natural inferences that we
about the deck. to the fan here). six and black two. make of the world,” Caffaratti says. “When you see
a magic trick, your brain searches your memories
to see if you have seen something similar. And, if
it can’t find it, it kind of says, ‘What is this?’ A ball
that can disappear, a table that levitates, these are
not the usual categories that help us perceive the
world. So there is a delay before we perceive them.”
As a PhD student at the University of Leicester,
Caffaratti set out to prove the physical existence of
4. Ask them to 5. They gather 6. Have them turn that delay, while at the same time demonstrating
deal face down - the pack and deal the top card on magic’s potential as a neuroscientific tool. He
ILLUSTRATION: JORI BOLTON

your rear cards will again – but making each pile to reveal videoed himself performing a routine called Chop
be first. Suggest two piles, dealing the two from your Cup, involving a cup and a ball, which was made
they shuffle and one at a time, back fan. Turn the two famous by the British magician Paul Daniels.
deal some more, and forth until set aside – they “It’s an amazing routine,” he says. “The ball
so it feels random. they have run out. are companions! appears and disappears under the cup in incredible
conditions. You put the ball under the cup, lift up HUGO CAFFARATTI has shown the brain is slower to process the “impossible”
the cup, and it’s not there. You put the ball under
the cup again and it’s in your pocket. Now it’s
underneath the cup. Now it has disappeared
again. It’s a great illusion – and the important
thing is you can repeat it again and again.”
Caffaratti connected his test subjects to an
electroencephalography monitor, which measures
electrical activity in the brain, and showed them
the video. He was looking for traces – known as the
event-related potentials (ERPs) – of the perceptual
processes that are at play when we perceive magic.
ERPs are changes in voltage that indicate that the
brain has responded to a specific stimulus (in this
case, the appearance or disappearance of the ball).
What Caffaratti found was that the unexpected
outcome of the magic trick elicited strong ERPs
that were significantly delayed compared with
those triggered by an event that wasn’t magical.
When subjects were shown a series of “normal”
events – the ball placed under the cup, for example,
and still there when the cup was lifted – their
brains showed a particular ERP, known as P300,
approximately 300 milliseconds after the event.
“But when the magic trick happened,” he says,
“a P300 was elicited about 50ms later. We were
seeing that, when it’s magic, it takes more time.”
What the results demonstrated was that an
“impossible” event, such as a magic trick, takes a
greater amount of time to be processed, compared
with something the brain is familiar with.
The fact that what was physically the same
object, in this case, a magician’s ball, elicited
different responses, depending on whether the
object appeared “magically” or not, helped to
confirm a long-held idea in psychology: that
our perception – the way in which we make sense
of the world – relies not only on the raw data
coming in to the brain from our senses, but also
on our pre-existing knowledge of the world,
which is stored in our memory.
Caffaratti had shown what happens when
searching that second stream draws a blank. He
had lifted the lid on the neuroscience of wonder.
am sitting in the back row of a lecture theatre in
Kuhn’s department at Goldsmiths. It’s
the summer holidays, and the faculty
is holding an open day for prospective
students. A hundred 17- and 18-year-
olds trickle in, neatly dressed in school
uniforms. They’re here to hear about
life as a Goldsmiths undergraduate.
But first they are going to be the subjects
of a psychology experiment.
Kuhn stands up and explains what is going
to happen. He says the department is often
approached by people claiming to be psychics.
Usually it tells them to go away; this is a place of
science, not superstition. But someone has come to
their attention recently who seems worth a second
look, and we’re going to see him in action. But first
Kuhn would like us to complete a questionnaire. He
passes a four-page handout down the aisles and asks
us to complete page one – rating on a scale of zero
to seven how much we believe in “supernatural”
phenomena such as reincarnation, poltergeists,
communicating with the dead and so on. Once we
have filled it in, he asks us to turn to page two.
Here we are presented with a short paragraph
about what we are about to see. Kuhn asks us
to paraphrase this information in the space
underneath, to ensure that we have understood it
properly. Half of the audience, he tells me later, is
informed that the man we are about to see claims to
have psychic powers. The other half is told that he is
a skilled magician and that everything we’re going
to witness is an illusion. Then the show begins.
The lights dim and a young man takes us through
a wonderfully entertaining psychic routine. He
correctly guesses, to oohs and aahs from the
crowd, how hidden dice thrown by members of the
audience have landed. He tells random people in the
theatre surprisingly intimate details about their
lives. As a finale, he brings someone up on stage and
relays a message from her deceased grandfather.
She reels in astonishment as the audience gasp and
applaud. The show is over, our psychic takes a bow,
and pretty much everyone is wide-eyed.
But not with disbelief. Now we have to fill in the
same questionnaire – reincarnation, poltergeists,
communicating with the dead and so on – as before.
And the results are surprising. Again and again,
when Kuhn stages this experiment, it does not
matter what the audience members have been told
in advance – afterwards, people tend to believe
more strongly in the supernatural than they did
before seeing the show. And remember, these are
prospective psychology students.
“We have shown,” Kuhn says, “that you can
change someone’s belief through a really strong
demonstration of something that people previously
thought impossible or very unlikely. You can move
them down the continuum quite a long way.”
The psychic is introduced as Matt Tompkins,
a semi-professional magician and researcher in
experimental psychology at Oxford; the dice are
revealed to be rigged; the questions are general
enough for Matt to work out something from his
target’s answers (a mentalist trick called “cold
reading”); and the woman who was stunned to hear
from her grandfather is revealed as a stooge.
Kuhn is troubled by results like this. “Magic is all
about giving people false explanations for what you
have done physically,” he says. “Mentalism does
this a lot, pretending to read people’s minds, when
obviously that’s impossible. But our research shows
 that these types of performances really do
change people’s beliefs, and that puts me
in a difficult position. On the one hand I
work as a scientist who is trying to inform
people and debunk myths about the brain;
yet I am using magic to misinform them.
So that has led me to a point where I feel
there are, ethically, magic tricks that I
would like to do – but cannot.”
Despite this research, not everyone
agrees that magic has shown it has a big
role to play in advancing our knowledge
of psychology and neuroscience. “I
think a lot of magic tricks are very good
illustrations of stuff psychologists
already know,” says Richard Wiseman,
professor of the public understanding
of psychology at the University of
Hertfordshire, and himself a magician.
Kuhn is unperturbed. “When I started
this work in 2004, 2005, a lot of fellow
scientists laughed a little bit,” he says.
“They said it was kind of quaint and cool,
but can it actually tell us anything of
interest? And I think now we are showing
they are wrong.” He points to the large
number of papers he and his colleagues
have published that use magic illusions to
throw light on the workings of the mind –
particularly on how easy it is to manipulate
decision-making and deeply held opinions.
In a world of fake news, he says, magic’s
strong connection with deception will
help us understand more about the mind’s
limitations when it comes to working out
what is true and what is not.
For Kuhn, the scientific study of magic
today is in a similar place to the study
of consciousness in the 1980s. “Any
academic going into psychology then,”
he says, “and saying they were studying
consciousness would have been told
that can’t be a serious science because
you can’t measure it. Now it’s one of
the coolest topics in science.” And he
has shown that all of us – scientists and
lay people alike – need to be a little less
confident of what we know to be “true”.
As we file out of the lecture theatre into
the late-afternoon sun, two prospective
psychology undergraduates behind me
are still talking about the show.
“I know what he said about the dice
and stuff,” said one, a girl who was about
17, “but I still think there was something
weird about that guy. He could read
minds.” “Definitely,” said her friend, a
male student. “That definitely exists.” 

David Baker wrote about the need for

Gustav Kuhn internet reform in issue 01.18

TH E
COLOPHON
ASMR TRIGGER HAPPY
Julia Galdo and Cody Cloud – aka photography
team JUCO – provided the eye-popping neon
images for our ASMR feature by chopping
up soap, squishing packing material and
rattling bowls of candy, all in the name of art.
Julia: “I think the ASMR video phenomenon is
crazy – and it’s definitely somewhat sexual,
especially when they make eye contact and it
never breaks. The social media thing of need-
ing an audience is a very weird turn for us as
human beings – and kids should be playing
outside, not indoors, staring into a lens. The
ASMR videos don’t work on me, but I imagine
it feels like when someone plays with your
hair, and you get that tingly sensation…”
Cody: “I enjoyed working with the coloured
soaps, because they were so strong visually.
I hadn’t tried to induce ASMR in myself be-
fore, but I didn’t get it on set, despite being
surrounded by all those trigger products and
re-enacting the videos. I loved the Skittles,
though – they looked like they sounded.”
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 The winning bid for an AI artwork hailed as the world’s first
to be sold at auction in October 2018. Portrait of Edmond
de Belamy, created by the French collective Obvious, went
for 40 times its original estimate at Christie's in New York
British public support for the legalisation of cannabis
– a record high for the country, according to a poll
by Populus – after the home secretary approved the
prescribing of medical cannabis in November 2018

The estimated amount of tax revenue that would be paid

out by large technology companies such as Microsoft
and Google between 2020 and 2023 under chancellor
Philip Hammond’s proposed digital tax. The measure
would levy a two per cent tax on tech companies’ sales
in the UK, as opposed to the current tax on profits
T H E WIR E D On average, the number of photos and videos posted by
I NDE X parents of their offspring by the time they are 13. A report
by the UK Children’s Commissioner found that children
WE SOU R CE growing up today are the first generation to be “datafied”
E V ER Y TH ING

That's all it took Alibaba to rack up $1bn in sales on its Plastic scrap the UK exported to Malaysia between January
Singles’ Day blowout on November 11, 2018. Total spend and August 2018, after China banned imports of British
in China's annual shopping frenzy, created in 2009 recycling. The environmental group Unearthed discovered
for lonely hearts to buy themselves gifts, is over $25bn the waste piled up in illegal dumps up to three metres tall

ILLUSTRATION: GIACOMO GAMBINERI. WORDS: DAPHNE LEPRINCE-RINGUET. SOURCES: POPULUS.CO.UK; UNEARTHED.GREENPEACE.ORG; EDITION.CNN.COM; BBC.CO.UK;
The value of a

ICO.ORG.UK; RECYCLEFORLONDON.COM; CHILDRENSCOMMISSIONER.GOV.UK; JOURNALS.PLOS.ORG; ELECTRICINSIGHTS.CO.UK; NEWS.SKY.COM; DEZEEN.COM

lawsuit filed by
Satanic Temple
The percentage of Facebook’s revenue activists against
represented by the £500,000 fine levied Netflix series
on the company by the UK Information The Chilling
Commissioner’s Office in October 2018 Adventures of
for breaching the Data Protection Act Sabrina . They
alleged the show
copied their
Baphomet icon
This is the amount of food binned – but have now
by Londoners every year: 60 per settled amicably
cent of it is still edible, and it
costs £1.4bn, or £840 a household

Wind, solar,
biomass and
hydro energy
capacity
in the UK
from July to
September
2018 – the
first time that
renewable Estimated global spend to treat illnesses caused by red
capacity has and processed meat, according to researchers from the
overtaken UK, US and Australia. They calculated that 22,000 lives
fossil fuels could be saved annually by raising taxes on the products
Help us end the
Wild West Web

Sajid Javid Jeremy Wright

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