The nature of advanced technologies brings with it new kinds of uncertainty. With regard to ethical thinking, this uncertainty renders inadequate some of the modern ways of analyzing responsibility. To clear the ground, it is necessary to argue that notions such as consequentialist ethics, role responsibility, or responsiveness are situationally disqualified. The meaning of "responsible innovation" might be better understood by analogy with two future-oriented varieties of responsibility: namely, individual parental responsibility and collective political responsibility. This talk will consider the 'virtues' necessary to exercise the forms of responsibility contained in responsible innovation, along with some of the ways in which old narratives can help us understand the complexities involved in moral choice about technologies. When long before modern technology Shakespeare saw a link between opportunity and guilt, what were his reasons? And are his reasons still valid for us?