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Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma
by Mustafa Suleyman
Book Reviewed by: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. ...
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 21st century...continued
Full Review
(952 words)
(Reviewed by Peggy Kurkowski).
Al Gore, former Vice President of the United States
Deeply researched and highly relevant. Angela Kane, former UN under-secretary-general
Calm, pragmatic, and deeply ethical ... enthralling reading. Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize–winning historian
An erudite, clear-eyed guide both to the history of radical technological change and to the deep political challenges that lie ahead. Ehud Barak, former Prime Minister, Israel
The Coming Wave is a masterpiece and a must-read for every leader grappling with today's reality. Eric Lander, founding director, Broad Institute of MIT and Harvard
Brilliant ... confronts what may be the most crucial question of our century: How can we ensure that the breathtaking, fast-paced technological revolutions ahead create the world we want? Eric Schmidt, former CEO, Google
Extraordinary ... utterly unmissable. Kevin Rudd, former Prime Minister, Australia
This book is a masterclass for policymakers on the great technological challenges already upon us and what they mean for geopolitics.
Artificial intelligence grabbed the headlines in November 2022 when OpenAI introduced ChatGPT to the world (GPT stands for generative pre-trained transformer). A large language model (LLM) designed to interact informally with a human interlocutor, ChatGPT has since released three more generations on the foundation model, with GPT-4's release in March 2023 marking its most impressive advances yet. "With broad general knowledge and domain expertise, GPT-4 can follow complex instructions in natural language and solve difficult problems with accuracy," according to OpenAI.
ChatGPT-4's capabilities are truly staggering. Now able to work with images, audio and code, this tool can compose poetry, create business plans, suggest...
If you liked The Coming Wave, try these:
by Claire Fuller
Published 2024
From the award-winning author of Our Endless Numbered Days, Swimming Lessons, Bitter Orange, and Unsettled Ground comes a beautiful and searing novel of memory, love, survival—and octopuses.
The Last Murder at the End of the World
by Stuart Turton
Published 2024
From the bestselling author of The 7 1/2 Deaths of Evelyn Hardcastle and The Devil and the Dark Water comes an inventive, high-concept murder mystery: an ingenious puzzle, an extraordinary backdrop, and an audacious solution.
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