The U.S. Navy constructed its own version of “the bombe” to help decipher German messages during World War II. Credit: National Cryptologic Museum
In The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the 21st Century’s Greatest Dilemma, Mustafa Suleyman details the intricacies of the technological revolution shaping the 21st century world, and argues containment is critical for the future of human flourishing. While technological waves of the past—such as the discoveries of fire, steel, and human language—reshaped the fabric of society, the features of this new wave of artificial intelligence (AI) and synthetic biology will redefine systems, structures, and institutions in ways society is not prepared to address. As “omni-use” technologies, AI and synthetic biology carry immense potential for good, but also immense potential for harm to humanity, governance, and the world’s political and economic order.
Suleyman outlines four key features of this coming wave: asymmetric transfer of power to anyone with capacity, hyper-evolution of development cycles, a shift from dual-use to “omni-use,” and autonomy of systems without human involvement. He is clear that a dehumanized future is imminent without strategic containment of negative externalities and potential for use by bad actors, and posits that the nation-state is the only entity capable of effectively addressing the dynamics of this coming wave. Suleyman argues that the nation-state is uniquely positioned to contain self-reinforcing motivations of geopolitical power competition, open-source research collaboration, corporate profits, and the idiosyncrasies of the human ego. However, the nation-state faces significant threats to its stability and integrity as global trust erodes.
Government regulation alone is not a sufficient tool for containment, especially given industry-wide incentives for profit and power. Accordingly, Suleyman presents ten practical steps to containment for technologists, politicians, corporate leaders, and the collective “we” of humanity—there is a place for everyone to get involved. Longtime practitioners will be more than familiar with Suleyman’s containment strategy, though The Coming Wave is a compelling primer for anyone working to develop or govern these new technologies. Suleyman concludes with an effective call to action, where he exhorts practitioners (and the public) to be honest about the reality of the coming wave before its textures and definitions are fixed in stone. Now is the time for humanity to define governance and strategy for the coming wave, before it’s too late.
The Coming Wave highlights a valuable human-centric approach to the future of tech and governance, where humanity built the systems in question, and will experience the results of these systems’ maturing growth. However, Suleyman’s macro-level argument leaves out micro-level individual responsibility inherent in each system he describes. (Though, interestingly, he highlights the human ego as an “unstoppable incentive” in the development of these technologies.) If people make technology, and people lead nation-states, then what kind of person should lead the future defined by the contradictions and complications of the coming wave? Given his extensive leadership and experience with frontier technologies, readers would be curious to understand who Suleyman sees as an ideal leader in a future of immense uncertainty, potential chaos, and possibly dehumanized systems of power in the coming decades.
