I think responsibility is higher now than previously. As said the Manhattan Project made a bomb that could possibly have destroyed the world - many of the scientists thought the chain reaction would set fire to the atmosphere - yet they tested it and used it in anger, twice. The Nazis would have too if Heisenberg had been a better tester than he was a theorist.
I think we are on the cusp of the most dangerous period of time for technology - nanotech. This gives us two prongs though, and as British Physicists Freemon Dyson has stated, there should be move from offensive to defensive military technology. We will soon (with nanotech and genome project) have the ability to have true mutually assured destruction of the whole human race - however, we will also have the ability to protect ourselves at a scale half the width of a single strand of DNA - i.e. at the absolute base sub-cellular level - we can engineer liquid Kevlar-like suits that provide full medical monitoring and life saving, and are impervious to NBC attack, with ability to move freely. Advanced defensive barriers can protect cities and aircraft. By making it impossible for attacks to succeed, it renders offensive war obsolete - and would result in a defensive arms race which is much more preferable to the alternative!
One thing is for sure - with 10 bullion people+ on this planet within the next 30 years - there are going to be a lot of envious and desperate nations in this world.
Technology advances most at times of war - this is well known - but technology also is the surest way to allow our species to continue - to provide new resources, new homes, and a better environment in all aspects thereof. Technology is the way forward. Freedoms, like the interne allow for independent thinkers, developers and experimenters - these are the people unpressured by the greedy who want for the status quo at the world's detriment, that innovations will freely come that will give us a bloodless coup over rampant consumerism, greed and corruption. Give it time - it's building up under the pressure of governments and big business doing their damnedest to halt it - starts with Wiki Leaks, Bitcoin and Dark Net - will end up with past structures used to separate us for the good of the pockets of a few obsolescence.