Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma
by Mustafa Suleyman
Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Sep 2023
352 pages
Genre: Science, Health and the Environment
Publication Information
An urgent warning of the unprecedented risks that AI and other fast-developing technologies pose to global order, and how we might contain them while we have the chance—from a co-founder of the pioneering artificial intelligence company DeepMind
We are approaching a critical threshold in the history of our species. Everything is about to change.
Soon you will live surrounded by AIs. They will organise your life, operate your business, and run core government services. You will live in a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy.
None of us are prepared.
As co-founder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind, part of Google, Mustafa Suleyman has been at the centre of this revolution. The coming decade, he argues, will be defined by this wave of powerful, fast-proliferating new technologies.
In The Coming Wave, Suleyman shows how these forces will create immense prosperity but also threaten the nation-state, the foundation of global order. As our fragile governments sleepwalk into disaster, we face an existential dilemma: unprecedented harms on one side, the threat of overbearing surveillance on the other.
Can we forge a narrow path between catastrophe and dystopia?
This groundbreaking book from the ultimate AI insider establishes "the containment problem"—the task of maintaining control over powerful technologies—as the essential challenge of our age.
"An informative yet disturbing study and a clear warning from someone whose voice cannot be ignored." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"Suleyman's account of DeepMind's achievements can come across as self-serving, but anecdotes about other companies working on technologies capable of, for instance, interfacing directly with the human brain, underscore the mind-bending possibilities. It's a sober take on navigating the perils of AI." —Publishers Weekly
"Brilliant ... confronts what may be the most crucial question of our century: How can we ensure that the breathtaking, fast-paced technological revolutions ahead create the world we want?" —Eric Lander, founding director, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
"An erudite, clear-eyed guide both to the history of radical technological change and to the deep political challenges that lie ahead." —Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian
"Extraordinary ... utterly unmissable." —Eric Schmidt, former CEO, Google
"Calm, pragmatic, and deeply ethical ... enthralling reading." —Angela Kane, former UN under-secretary-general
"Deeply researched and highly relevant." —Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States
"The Coming Wave is a masterpiece and a must-read for every leader grappling with today's reality."
—Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister, Israel
"This book is a masterclass for policymakers on the great technological challenges already upon us and what they mean for geopolitics." —Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister, Australia
This information about The Coming Wave was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Mustafa Suleyman is the co-founder and CEO of Inflection AI. Previously he co-founded DeepMind, one of the world's leading AI companies. After a decade at DeepMind, Suleyman became vice president of AI product management and AI policy at Google.
Michael Bhaskar is a writer and publisher, author of The Content Machine, Curation and Human Frontiers.
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