The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century’s Greatest Dilemma by Mustafa Suleyman

“Mustafa Suleyman” examines the future of Artificial Intelligence (AI): the good, the bad and the scary in realistic terms. Co-founder and CEO of Inflection AI and cofounder of DeepMind, Mustafa Suleyman takes the readers on a ride to the future of AI and its implications. This thought-provoking 500-page book includes fourteen chapters broken out by the following four parts: I. Homo Technologicus, II. The Next Wave, III. States of Failure, and IV. Through the Wave.

Positives:
1. Well-researched an insightful book. Suleyman has the expertise and experience to write such a book.
2. Artificial Intelligence (AI) is a fascinating topic, specifically whether containment is possible.
3. The book flows very well and it’s accessible. The reader is not expected to have expertise in the area to understand it.
4. Clearly defines the key topic of the book, the wave. “So, what is a wave? Put simply, a wave is a set of technologies coming together around the same time, powered by one or several new general-purpose technologies with profound societal implications.”
5. Goes over the history of technological waves. “One major study pegged the number of general-purpose technologies that have emerged over the entire span of human history at just twenty-four, naming inventions ranging from farming, the factory system, the development of materials like iron and bronze, through to printing presses, electricity, and of course the internet. There aren’t many of them, but they matter; it’s why in the popular imagination we still use terms like the Bronze Age and the Age of Sail.”
6. Defines the most important topic in the book, containment. “Containment is the overarching ability to control, limit, and, if need be, close down technologies at any stage of their development or deployment.” “Technical containment refers to what happens in a lab or an R&D facility. In AI, for example, it means air gaps, sandboxes, simulations, off switches, hard built-in safety and security measures—protocols for verifying the safety or integrity or uncompromised nature of a system and taking it offline if needed.”
7. The two technologies threatening to surpass our own intelligence. “The coming wave of technology is built primarily on two general-purpose technologies capable of operating at the grandest and most granular levels alike: artificial intelligence and synthetic biology.”
8. Describes breakthroughs in AI. “The breakthrough moment took nearly half a century, finally arriving in 2012 in the form of a system called AlexNet. AlexNet was powered by the resurgence of an old technique that has now become fundamental to AI, one that has supercharged the field and was integral to us at DeepMind: deep learning.”
9. Interesting observations and predictions. “In the words of an eminent computer scientist, “It seems totally obvious to me that of course all programs in the future will ultimately be written by AIs, with humans relegated to, at best, a supervisory role.”
10. The often-used term Singularity defined. “Over the last decade, intellectual and political elites in tech circles became absorbed by the idea that a recursively self-improving AI would lead to an “intelligence explosion” known as the Singularity.”
11. Examines synthetic biology. “Companies such as DNA Script are commercializing DNA printers that train and adapt enzymes to build de novo, or completely new, molecules. This capability has given rise to the new field of synthetic biology—the ability to read, edit, and now write the code of life.”
12. Looks at other transformative technologies that are part of the wider wave. “Amazon’s “first fully autonomous mobile robot,” called Proteus, can buzz around warehouses in great fleets, picking up parcels. Equipped with “advanced safety, perception, and navigation technology,” it can do this comfortably alongside humans. Amazon’s Sparrow is the first that can “detect, select, and handle individual products in [its] inventory.””
13. Describes the quest for quantum supremacy. “In 2019, Google announced that it had reached “quantum supremacy.” Researchers had built a quantum computer, one using the peculiar properties of the subatomic world.”
14. Describes the four features that define the coming wave. “The coming wave is, however, characterized by a set of four intrinsic features compounding the problem of containment. First among them is the primary lesson of this section: hugely asymmetric impact. You don’t need to hit like with like, mass with mass; instead, new technologies create previously unthinkable vulnerabilities and pressure points against seemingly dominant powers.”
15. Explores containment issues. “However, any discussion of containment has to acknowledge that if or when AGI-like technologies do emerge, they will present containment problems beyond anything else we’ve ever encountered. Humans dominate our environment because of our intelligence. A more intelligent entity could, it follows, dominate us.”
16. The race for AI supremacy between China and the U.S. “China is already ahead of the United States in green energy, 5G, and AI and is on a trajectory to overtake it in quantum and biotech in the next few years. The Pentagon’s first chief software officer resigned in protest in 2021 because he was so dismayed by the situation. “We have no competing fighting chance against China in 15 to 20 years. Right now, it’s already a done deal; it is already over in my opinion,” he told the Financial Times.”
17. Statements that resonate. “Science has to be converted into useful and desirable products for it to truly spread far and wide. Put simply: most technology is made to earn money.”
18. Examines the implications of this coming wave and democracy. “A meta-analysis published in the journal Nature reviewed the results of nearly five hundred studies, concluding there is a clear correlation between growing use of digital media and rising distrust in politics, populist movements, hate, and polarization.”
19. Cyber threats examined. “Today’s cyberattacks are not the real threat; they are the canary in the coal mine of a new age of vulnerability and instability, degrading the nation-state’s role as the sole arbiter of security.”
20. The dangers of highest of high tech in the hands of a few. “This raises the prospect of totalitarianism to a new plane. It won’t happen everywhere, and not all at once. But if AI, biotech, quantum, robotics, and the rest of it are centralized in the hands of a repressive state, the resulting entity would be palpably different from any yet seen.”
21. Describes varieties of catastrophe. “AI is both valuable and dangerous precisely because it’s an extension of our best and worst selves.”
22. Describes keys to containment. “Deft regulation, balancing the need to make progress alongside sensible safety constraints, on national and supranational levels, spanning everything from tech giants and militaries to small university research groups and start-ups, tied up in a comprehensive, enforceable framework.”
23. Defines the key problem of the twenty-first century. “The central problem for humanity in the twenty-first century is how we can nurture sufficient legitimate political power and wisdom, adequate technical mastery, and robust norms to constrain technologies to ensure they continue to do far more good than harm.”
24. Lists the ten steps to containment. “There’s a clear must-do here: encourage, incentivize, and directly fund much more work in this area. It’s time for an Apollo program on AI safety and biosafety.”
25. Notes and a link to the bibliography provided.

Negatives:
1. If you have watched Suleyman’s YouTube Videos there is very little new here.
2. Emphasis of speculation over technical details. I wanted more details; if the purpose is to keep the book accessible such details can be included in an appendix.
3. Redundancy.
4. Lack visual supplementary material: charts, diagrams, and sketches to complement the narrative.
5. Lacks a formal bibliography.

In summary, this is an important topic a plea of sorts to global leadership and subject matter experts to watch this issue carefully and to take the proper precautions to contain the worst of AI’s potential. Suleyman makes clear that AI has potential for much good but also to catastrophe if humanity loses containment. The Coming Wave of AI and synthetic biology creates immense challenges for humanity, are we ready for it? An excellent, provocative book. I highly recommend it!

Further suggestions: “Superintelligence” by Nick Bostrom, “The Age of AI” by Matt Ridley, “AGI: Age of Superintelligence” by Richard A. Mann,“The Singularity Is Near” and “How to Create a Mind” by Ray Kurzweil, “Our Final Invention” by James Barrat, “Surviving AI” by Calum, “ Chace, “When Computers Can Think” by Anthony Berglas, “What to Think About Machines That Think” edited by John Brockman, and “Rise of the Robots” by Martin Ford.

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The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century's Greatest Dilemma