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

Mustafa Suleyman with Michael Bhaskar · Curated 2026-03-23

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The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma Mustafa Suleyman with Michael Bhaskar

The DeepMind co-founder on why containment of AI and biotech is the defining challenge of our era.

What it covers

Suleyman argues that AI and synthetic biology represent a technological wave that will be impossible to stop, and lays out the governance frameworks needed to manage it.

Why it matters

This isn't armchair theorizing — Suleyman was at the center of Google DeepMind. His insider perspective on the tension between innovation speed and safety gives this book a credibility that most AI governance writing lacks.

What it made me think

The 'containment problem' framing is powerful because it turns governance into an engineering question: every system either makes powerful capability easier to contain, or harder.

Takeaways

• AI and biotech constitute a 'coming wave' that cannot be uninvented or stopped
• The core challenge is containment — keeping powerful technology within beneficial bounds
• Historical waves (printing press, industrial revolution) offer both hope and warning
• Nation-states are poorly structured to regulate technologies that transcend borders
• Technical safety research and governance frameworks must advance in parallel

As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases.