The Coming Wave: The instant Sunday Times bestseller from the ultimate AI insider
£14.30£23.80 (-40%)
**A Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, Sept 2023**
**SHORTLISTED FOR THE FT BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023**
AI. SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY. QUANTUM COMPUTING. Everything is about to change. This is the only book you need to understand this new world.
From the ultimate AI insider, Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind, part of Google.
‘Fascinating, well-written, and important’ Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens
‘Deeply rewarding and consistently astonishing’ Stephen Fry
‘An excellent guide for navigating unprecedented times’ Bill Gates
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.
‘A stunning book by a man at the very centre of the AI revolution’ Rory Stewart
‘Essential reading’ Daniel Kahneman
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Additional information
| Publisher | Bodley Head (7 Sept. 2023) |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Hardcover | 352 pages |
| ISBN-10 | 1847927483 |
| ISBN-13 | 978-1847927484 |
| Dimensions | 16.2 x 3.3 x 24 cm |
by Harry Hughes
THE COMING WAVE is an extraordinary exploration, which ponders the most salient of conundrums occupying the minds of the tech industry today. I found the questions it raised illuminating, educational and unsettling in equal measure, whilst maintaining an unquantifiable calmness in tone.
Clearly thoroughly researched, the author’s ability to knit together the various technologies (described in considerable and impressive depth!), which, when combined, neatly define ‘The Coming Wave’, is quite an achievement.
Recommendations on how one might approach the ‘great impending milestone’ in human ingenuity are well thought out, and draw on similar(?) historical breakthroughs for comparison. Suleyman doesn’t merely scratch the surface here – it is a book within a book.
Ultimately, a very enjoyable read. It shows great balance on a subject matter that can be very divisive, and gives the every-day reader a clearer understanding of what’s afoot, and indeed how one might approach it!
by N. Richardson
You really could spend months getting distracted by all the hype and news around AI. Or you could just read this book. Insightful and thought provoking, AI certainly does present a 21st Century dilemma – it’s a great read.
The breadth of references, and the depth in which it goes into technologies like AI are unrivaled. It distills everything the reader needs to know into one digestible package. The technology, sure, but also the ethics and politics and mind-bogglingly consequences. As someone who works in school marketing, we are already seeing the first impacts of AI on the entire sector and how it can transform media communications and work in the space. What this book showed is how wide and deep those changes are likely to be in the next few years.
It does not always make for comfortable reading, but it leaves you with a sense of the world having been opened up and the future brought into focus.
by Artist/Designer
While we the masses struggle with fundamentals such as how does a machine learn (as opposed to progress by brute force or Monte Carlo) I think this book would have stood out had it helped shine light on what the machines are doing. Using Go would be tricky, so initially an easier example might help.
by Edward Fahy
As someone who’s always been fascinated yet slightly overwhelmed by the rapid advancements in technology, I found Mustafa Suleyman’s “The Coming Wave” to be an absolute treasure trove of insights. It’s like having a front-row seat to the future.
What I Loved:
* Insider Insights: Suleyman’s experience as a co-founder of DeepMind and someone who is deeply embeded in AI shines through every chapter.
* Balanced Narrative: The book doesn’t just awe you with the potential of AI and quantum computing, but also sobers you up with the risks of engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons. It’s a rollercoaster ride between utopia and dystopia.
* Practical Takeaways: As a business owner, the insights on AI in business operations were gold. I’ve got so many great ideas for what this means in my work and future plans.
* Storytelling: Let’s just say Suleyman could give Spielberg a run for his money. The way he weaves stories and facts is spellbinding!
This isn’t just a book; it’s a survival kit for the 21st century.
Whether you’re an AI geek, a business mogul, or just someone curious about the future, “The Coming Wave” is a must-listen.
It’s not just about understanding AI; it’s about riding the wave without wiping out.
by N. Richardson
Stone tools, engines, fire, AI, computing, nuclear weapons, biotech, robots, quantum computing, nuclear fusion. The world economy, the fall of the nation state, a flood of misinformation, automation of jobs, the spreading of power around the world. A 10 point plan to save everything. It’s safe to say The Coming Wave is packed with stuff… It covers some serious ground in style. You are guaranteed to learn something – an epic read!
by Amazon Customer
I am enjoying this book simply because it is do full of stuffs that the future holds in terms of Science and Technology Artificial Intelligence And Quantum Units.As far as I am concerned still futured shocked by the Internet I have been left just wondering how much I am still a cave man.At times I despair but soon I say to myself not everyone is the same.Just be informed and be educated and have a taste of what this little big world is all about.Fascinating stuff.I referred to Future shock by Alvin Tofler and was comparing and contrasting.The world has shot ahead.Frankestein comes to mind at various points of my perusal.But I quickly console myself the world will take care of itself despite its possible inherent horrors.
by DaveyByrne
This book starts out the same as every other futurescape book by describing how amazing humanity is, and how society advances steadily by inventing and evolving.
Fair enough.
The middle ground is the only decent part – describing how far advanced key technologies are like AI and gene-editing. This is genuinely interesting.
Then it launches into the third phase which smacks of yet another globalist top-down manifesto… it’s literally saying “I don’t think we should get rid of government – but governments don’t stand a chance against the corporate technocratic tsunami that is coming”.
But we need “Governance” don’t we – so it outlines yet another top-down view of how the world should be controlled by centralized authority. Erm, and governments should have a role. Yes, of course.
Sad.
I should have known just by looking at the long list of utterly dubious people who have endorsed this book.
by Matt
Suleyman and Bhaskar have written a treatise on how to contain the worlds most volatile and exponential technologies. An in-depth read that takes the breath away at times, I am astounded by the amount of information and knowledge contained in the pages.