Mustafa Suleyman is the ultimate AI insider. As co-founder of DeepMind and Inflection AI, he is one of the pioneers of the artificial intelligence revolution, potentially the single greatest accelerant of progress in history. Investors in Inflection AI include the likes of Microsoft, Nvidia and Bill Gates. Suleyman says AI represents nothing less than a step change in human capability and human society, introducing both risks and innovations on an awesome scale. This is what is coming. 

In September 2023 Suleyman came to the Intelligence Squared stage to discuss his new book The Coming Wave: Technology, Power and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma. In conversation with Zanny Minton Beddoes, Editor-in-Chief of The Economist, he explained how he believes we are approaching a critical threshold in the history of humankind. Soon we will live surrounded by AIs which will carry out complex tasks – operating businesses, running government services and maintaining infrastructure. This will be a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, robot assistants and abundant energy, as well as human-engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons. 

We are not prepared, Suleyman argued. 

While these tools hold the promise of solving global problems and generating immense wealth, they also bring the risk of upheaval on a scale we can barely imagine. Suleyman explored how these forces threaten the very foundations of the nation state and the global order. And he argued that we face an existential dilemma: on the one side lie unprecedented harms arising from unchecked and unregulated AI, and on the other, the threat of overbearing surveillance from the state. Can our governments forge a narrow path between too much openness and too much control? Or are we sleepwalking into disaster?

Suleyman grappled with ‘the containment problem’ – the task of maintaining control over artificial intelligence and other powerful technologies – the ultimate challenge of our times.

Presented in partnership with Penguin

Praise for Mustafa Suleyman’s The Coming Wave: Technology, Power and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma

‘Deeply rewarding and consistently astonishing.’ ― Stephen Fry

‘A fascinating, well-written and important book’ ― Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens

‘Rich with interesting facts, arresting arguments, and compelling observations, it is essential reading.’ ― Daniel Kahneman, author ofThinking Fast and Slow

‘The AI revolution is under way, but how well do we really understand it? The Coming Wave offers an erudite, clear-eyed guide to both the history of radical technological change and to the deep political challenges that lay ahead.’ — Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer-Prize winning historian

‘An excellent guide for navigating unprecedented times.’ ― Bill Gates

‘A stunning book by a man at the very centre of the AI resolution – realistic, tough-minded [and] charting a meaningful course between AI catastrophe and dystopia.’ ― Rory Stewart

‘Extraordinary … utterly unmissable.’ ― Eric Schmidt, former CEO of Google and author of The Age of AI

‘A brave wake-up call … Indispensable reading.’ ― Tristan Harris, executive director of the Centre for Humane Technology

‘This vital book is inspiring and terrifying … we need to read it and act on it.’ ― David Miliband, former UK Foreign Secretary