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

For someone not involved in the world of AI, the book was very enlightening.

Didn’t read it yet

I am not a fan of the author, he tries too much to be like Steve Jobs. I have listened to his Ted talk and thought I would give the book a shot. I did not complete more than 1/3 of the book because it was about everything except AI. He rattles on and on about the industrial revolutions, steam engines etcetc. He basically did a dump of wikipedia focused on the last 4 industrial revolutions. I get the impression he was desperately trying to fill pages with anything and everything related to industrial revolutions no matter how much of a stretch it was. Makes me think he has little to say on the topic that is original but felt it was a good idea to have a book behind his name.

Everyone this is a must read. Everything and anything about AI.

The beginning is genuinely engaging, with sharp insights and fascinating comparisons that make you stop and think. Unfortunately, the book quickly gets lost in endless repetitions. The same points are made over and over again. Tiring and boring. Too often it slips into a self-congratulatory tone, and at times feels hypocritical: Suleyman criticizes the system, but he is also very much part of it. I lack concrete suggestions at the end. A book with a brilliant opening that could have been much stronger if it had been more concise and less self-indulgent.

I don’t know what is going on with ordering books lately. They are coming dirty and scratched… this came with bird waste on it and it was not clean at all I had to through away the cover…

There is no doubt that this book, by the founder of DeepMind, will be influential for years to come. There is much for policy makers to dwell upon. The style of writing is accessible, there are no equations, nor are we expected to understand the sublime complexities of multi-layered neural networks which apparently give DeepMind its ‘mind’. The twin topics of the book are artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, how they combine to make the future not only exciting but threatening. The book concludes with a list of ways in which we can reduce that threat. Throughout the book there is a lurking presence and it is China. The author mentions the adversarial posture that the West has taken towards China’s technological progress, such as restricting the sale of advanced AI-capable chips, but I was disappointed that this was not explored further as it has huge consequences for the policies of ‘containment’ listed at the end of the book. China will go its own way, as Xi Jinping has said it will, while the West may go more slowly as it tries to implement those policies. This requires more thought. Many of us watched the ‘game-changing’ match between AlphaGo and South Korean world champion Lee Sedol in 2016. Less well known is that the match was repeated in 2017 in China with the top Chinese Go player Ke Jie, which is described on page 118 as follows: “The environment was stricter, more controlled; the narrative closely curated by the authorities. No more media circus. The subtext was clear: this wasn’t just a game anymore. AlphaGo won again, but did so amid an unmistakably tense atmosphere.” It wasn’t so much a game this time as a humiliation and its significance was not lost on the Chinese government: “Today, China has an explicit national strategy to be the world leader in AI by 2030. The New Generation Artificial Intelligence Development Plan, announced just two months after Ke Jie was beaten by AlphaGo, was intended to harness government, the military, research organizations, and industry in a collective mission.” One of the declared goals of that mission is “making China the world’s primary innovation center” (quote from the Chinese plan). The book goes on to remind us that “China overtook the United States in number of PhDs produced in 2007, but since then investment in and expansion of programs have been significant, producing nearly double the number of STEM PhDs as the United States every year” (p121). And what is the West doing? Allowing its universities to steadily undermine their pre-eminence in science by anti-science ‘woke’ agendas. It’s mad. Although China’s relentless technological advance is not the main theme of the book, for me it is the most important take-away for policy makers. The implications for the free world are ominous if it doesn’t get its act together pretty quickly. China will read this book with interest. So should our leaders.

Mustafa Suleyman and Michael Bhaskar have written an excellent book, "The Coming Wave." Unlike many authors who project unbridled optimism, the authors strike two notes simultaneously: one of inevitability and the other of caution and concern. They divided the book into four sections, which they call 'Homo Technoligicus,' 'The Next Wave,' 'States of Failure,' and 'Through the Wave.' They devote the first section to explaining how waves of technological innovation have transformed humanity for thousands of years. Even the slightest pause will convince anyone of this truism. Since we fashioned stone tools centuries ago, humans have innovated, changing the world and society. The next wave will create changes at an exponential rate, a topic they discuss. When I was a child, we did not possess direct dialing telephones, and now the mobile phone often appears to extend our brains. They discuss artificial intelligence and its impact–now and in the future. A person growing up now will live a different life than we do today. When will machine intelligence overtake human intelligence? Most people cannot perform the most straightforward calculations and resort to a calculator. No one knows of Trachtenberg's system of speed mathematics anymore! The book's third section focuses on the dangers of this advancing wave of technology: misinformation, disinformation, cyberwar, and the changing nature of war, amongst others. Yet, as the authors emphasize, technological advances are improving our lives–at least, the lives of those with access to the benefits. Technology does not benefit a starving person. Unlike most authors who present us with an overtly sunny view of these advancements, Mustafa Suleyman and Michael Bhaskar acknowledge that the sunlight warms us but can also burn us. The book's fourth section focuses on the necessity for responsible containment. It proposes ten steps (or means) by which governments, society, and corporations can work together to contain the dangers this new 'machine technology' poses to society while retaining the benefits. They end with a provocative question: how will the nature and meaning of humanity change in the coming decades? The book is excellent, well-written, and accessible to everyone, including the lay reader. It is a book that many people must read to educate themselves on current and future developments in AI and synthetic biology. People must read the book now. In five years, it will be outdated.