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Audiobook of the Week: How to ‘Contain’ the Threat of A.I.?

In “The Coming Wave,” the British social activist turned tech entrepreneur Mustafa Suleyman explores the existential risks of our new digital age.

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By Cade Metz

Cade Metz is a technology reporter for The Times and the author of “Genius Makers: The Mavericks Who Brought A.I. to Google, Facebook, and The World.”

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THE COMING WAVE: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma , by Mustafa Suleyman with Michael Bhaskar. Read by Mustafa Suleyman.

Near the end of “The Coming Wave,” his sweeping look at the future of artificial intelligence and other transformative technologies, Mustafa Suleyman acknowledges the whiplash that listeners must feel as he guides them through this strange new territory — and makes no apologies for it. “If this book feels contradictory in its attitude toward technology, part positive and part foreboding,” he says, “that’s because such a contradictory view is the most honest assessment of where we are.”

As one of the founders of DeepMind, a seminal A.I. lab acquired by Google in 2014, Suleyman is intimately familiar with the technologies, companies and personalities at the heart of the A.I. revolution. With help from his coauthor Michael Bhaskar, he deftly describes how the latest online chatbots, image generators and similar A.I. systems could supercharge everything from computer programming to transportation to medical research. And with even greater verve, he explains the many ways these technologies could do harm: by spreading disinformation, replacing countless workers and maybe even destroying humanity.

Nowadays, talk of existential risk has become an oddly effective way of hyping new technologies. And Suleyman, who now runs a start-up called Inflection A.I., is among those who stand to benefit from the hype. But as a left-leaning social activist who dropped out of Oxford to start a mental-health help line for Muslim youths in Britain, he acknowledges the need to address more pressing problems in the near term — the egos of the industry’s biggest players among them.

Reading the audiobook himself with an Englishness that is both convincing and comforting to the ears of an American, Suleyman provides a window into the aims and attitudes of these big players. Though they see the risks, they see enormous upsides, too. If they don’t build the technology, they believe someone else will. Given A.I.’s inevitable rise, Suleyman argues, companies and nations must come together to develop ways of containing it.

Can that happen? His answer is another contradiction. Containing the technology looks impossible, he says. But he remains an optimist.

‘The Coming Wave’

THE COMING WAVE: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-First Century’s Greatest Dilemma | By Mustafa Suleyman with Michael Bhaskar | Read by Mustafa Suleyman | Random House Audio | 11 hours, 48 minutes

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Cade Metz writes about artificial intelligence, driverless cars, robotics, virtual reality and other emerging areas of technology. More about Cade Metz

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THE COMING WAVE

Technology, power, and the 21st century's greatest dilemma.

by Mustafa Suleyman with Michael Bhaskar ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 5, 2023

An informative yet disturbing study and a clear warning from someone whose voice cannot be ignored.

Amid the flood of optimism about artificial intelligence, the significant dangers must be understood and assessed.

Suleyman might seem like a strange person to write a book about the dangers of AI. He is the CEO and co-founder of Inflection AI, and, before that, he co-founded DeepMind (now owned by Alphabet), a company working at the leading edge of AI research. As the author shows, however, it is precisely because he is an expert that he knows enough to be fearful. He believes that within a few years, AI systems will break into the broad public market, placing enormous computing power in the hands of anyone with a few thousand dollars and a bit of expertise. Suleyman recognizes that this could bring remarkable benefits, but he argues that the negatives are even greater. One frightening possibility is a disgruntled individual using off-the-shelf AI to manufacture a deadly, unstoppable virus. Other scenarios range from disrupting financial markets to creating floods of disinformation. Suleyman accepts that the AI genie is too far out of the bottle to be put back; the questions are now about containment and regulation. There is a model in the framework established by the biomedical sector to set guidelines and moral limits on what genetic experiments could take place. The author also suggests looking at “choke points,” including the manufacturers of advanced chips and the companies that manage the cloud. The key step, however, would be the development of a culture of caution in the AI community. As Suleyman admits, any of these proposals would be extremely difficult to implement. Nonetheless, he states his case with clarity and authority, and the result is a worrying, provocative book. “Containment is not, on the face of it, possible,” he concludes. “And yet for all our sakes, containment must be possible.”

Pub Date: Sept. 5, 2023

ISBN: 9780593593950

Page Count: 352

Publisher: Crown

Review Posted Online: June 7, 2023

Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2023

CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY | WORLD | PUBLIC POLICY | ISSUES & CONTROVERSIES

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WHAT THIS COMEDIAN SAID WILL SHOCK YOU

by Bill Maher ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 21, 2024

Maher calls out idiocy wherever he sees it, with a comedic delivery that veers between a stiletto and a sledgehammer.

The comedian argues that the arts of moderation and common sense must be reinvigorated.

Some people are born snarky, some become snarky, and some have snarkiness thrust upon them. Judging from this book, Maher—host of HBO’s Real Time program and author of The New New Rules and When You Ride Alone, You Ride With bin Laden —is all three. As a comedian, he has a great deal of leeway to make fun of people in politics, and he often delivers hilarious swipes with a deadpan face. The author describes himself as a traditional liberal, with a disdain for Republicans (especially the MAGA variety) and a belief in free speech and personal freedom. He claims that he has stayed much the same for more than 20 years, while the left, he argues, has marched toward intolerance. He sees an addiction to extremism on both sides of the aisle, which fosters the belief that anyone who disagrees with you must be an enemy to be destroyed. However, Maher has always displayed his own streaks of extremism, and his scorched-earth takedowns eventually become problematic. The author has something nasty to say about everyone, it seems, and the sarcastic tone starts after more than 300 pages. As has been the case throughout his career, Maher is best taken in small doses. The book is worth reading for the author’s often spot-on skewering of inept politicians and celebrities, but it might be advisable to occasionally dip into it rather than read the whole thing in one sitting. Some parts of the text are hilarious, but others are merely insulting. Maher is undeniably talented, but some restraint would have produced a better book.

Pub Date: May 21, 2024

ISBN: 9781668051351

Page Count: 384

Publisher: Simon & Schuster

Review Posted Online: March 5, 2024

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2024

POLITICS | CURRENT EVENTS & SOCIAL ISSUES | ISSUES & CONTROVERSIES | ENTERTAINMENT, SPORTS & CELEBRITY

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Artist and activist Vaid-Menon demonstrates how the normativity of the gender binary represses creativity and inflicts physical and emotional violence.

The author, whose parents emigrated from India, writes about how enforcement of the gender binary begins before birth and affects people in all stages of life, with people of color being especially vulnerable due to Western conceptions of gender as binary. Gender assignments create a narrative for how a person should behave, what they are allowed to like or wear, and how they express themself. Punishment of nonconformity leads to an inseparable link between gender and shame. Vaid-Menon challenges familiar arguments against gender nonconformity, breaking them down into four categories—dismissal, inconvenience, biology, and the slippery slope (fear of the consequences of acceptance). Headers in bold font create an accessible navigation experience from one analysis to the next. The prose maintains a conversational tone that feels as intimate and vulnerable as talking with a best friend. At the same time, the author's turns of phrase in moments of deep insight ring with precision and poetry. In one reflection, they write, “the most lethal part of the human body is not the fist; it is the eye. What people see and how people see it has everything to do with power.” While this short essay speaks honestly of pain and injustice, it concludes with encouragement and an invitation into a future that celebrates transformation.

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ISBN: 978-0-593-09465-5

Page Count: 64

Publisher: Penguin Workshop

Review Posted Online: March 14, 2020

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Reviews of The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman

Summary | Excerpt | Reviews | Beyond the book | Read-Alikes | Genres & Themes | Author Bio

The Coming Wave

Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma

by Mustafa Suleyman

Critics' Opinion:

Readers' Opinion:

• Science, Health and the Environment
• Contemporary

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About this Book

Book summary.

An urgent warning of the unprecedented risks that AI and other fast-developing technologies pose to global order, and how we might contain them while we have the chance—from a co-founder of the pioneering artificial intelligence company DeepMind

We are approaching a critical threshold in the history of our species. Everything is about to change. Soon you will live surrounded by AIs. They will organise your life, operate your business, and run core government services. You will live in a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy. None of us are prepared. As co-founder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind, part of Google, Mustafa Suleyman has been at the centre of this revolution. The coming decade, he argues, will be defined by this wave of powerful, fast-proliferating new technologies. In The Coming Wave , Suleyman shows how these forces will create immense prosperity but also threaten the nation-state, the foundation of global order. As our fragile governments sleepwalk into disaster, we face an existential dilemma: unprecedented harms on one side, the threat of overbearing surveillance on the other. Can we forge a narrow path between catastrophe and dystopia? This groundbreaking book from the ultimate AI insider establishes "the containment problem"—the task of maintaining control over powerful technologies—as the essential challenge of our age.

The Containment Problem Revenge Effects

Alan Turing and Gordon Moore could never have predicted, let alone altered the rise of, social media, memes, Wikipedia, or cyberattacks. Decades after their invention, the architects of the atomic bomb could no more stop a nuclear war than Henry Ford could stop a car accident. Technology's unavoidable challenge is that its makers quickly lose control over the path their inventions take once introduced to the world. Technology exists in a complex, dynamic system (the real world), where second-, third-, and nth-order consequences ripple out unpredictably. What on paper looks flawless can behave differently out in the wild, especially when copied and further adapted downstream. What people actually do with your invention, however well intentioned, can never be guaranteed. Thomas Edison invented the phonograph so people could record their thoughts for posterity and to help the blind. He was horrified when most people just wanted to play music. ...

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Including such prescriptions as improved technical safety, audits, governmental regulations and international alliances, Suleyman is cautiously optimistic about the ability of the collective "we" of humanity to fundamentally change society. However, Suleyman's recurring mantra that containment might not look possible but must be inevitably leaves the reader feeling less than sanguine about sweeping change in a fragmented, fraught world. The Coming Wave is necessary reading, if only to understand the ways technology shapes societies and often directs the course of history. Elegantly written, impeccably researched and passionately argued, this is the technological wake-up call for the 21 st century... continued

(Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski ).

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The Coming Wave review: How AI reshapes our world

How powerful is artificial intelligence? Where has it sprung from? Mustafa Suleyman's The Coming Wave is one of four disquieting books which set out to explore AI's hold on the world

By Simon Ings

13 September 2023

A surveillance state is one of the extreme futures that may face us

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The Age of Prediction Igor Tulchinsky and Christopher E. Mason (MIT Press)

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The Coming Wave

What is striking about Suleyman’s heavily promoted book is how the optimism of his will is overwhelmed by the pessimism of his intellect, to borrow a phrase from the Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci —  Read the complete FT review

Soon you will live surrounded by AIs. They will organise your life, operate your business, and run core government services. You will live in a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy.

None of us are prepared.

As co-founder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind, part of Google, Mustafa Suleyman has been at the centre of this revolution. The coming decade, he argues, will be defined by this wave of powerful, fast-proliferating new technologies.

In The Coming Wave , Suleyman shows how these forces will create immense prosperity but also threaten the nation-state, the foundation of global order. As our fragile governments sleepwalk into disaster, we face an existential dilemma: unprecedented harms on one side and the threat of overbearing surveillance on the other.

Can we forge a narrow path between catastrophe and dystopia?

This ground-breaking book from the ultimate AI insider establishes ‘the containment problem’ - the task of maintaining control over powerful technologies - as the essential challenge of our age.

Also in Technology & Innovation