3.5 stars
Maybe, I tackled this book looking for some hope. Because this book gives a lot of facts but it has the potential to scare you.
Suleyman as the co-founder of DeepMind is obviously a smart guy. We have to assume that all the data in the pages is correct. But after a while (and yes, I did indeed finish the book) the style of constantly bombarding the reader with facts on AI, DNA, code breaking and deep fake news wears down the reader.
Suleyman has a lot to say, and for the average person looking to learn more of AI, but not be overwhelmed, this could have been pared down. Or maybe made into more than one book.

Really good history of technology and where we are going from here. The author lays out the pros and cons of various technological advances and how there are a lot of scare tactics about AI out there now. I learned a lot!

THE COMING WAVE by Mustafa Suleyman, subtitled "Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma," is about the potential impact of advanced artificial intelligence (AI) and biotechnology. Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind, illustrates the point beautifully in the prologue which notes, "we are faced with a choice – a choice between a future of unparalleled possibility and a future of unimaginable peril." He argues for containment, admitting that it is extremely difficult, but necessary and suggests biomedical ethics and regulations as a possible model. He also encourages readers to look at "choke points" (e.g., chip production) as another means of control or restraint. Think about changes we have seen in the last few years: Suleyman says, "Today, AI systems can almost perfectly recognize faces and objects. We take speech-to-text transcription and instant language translation for granted. ... AI has been climbing the ladder of cognitive abilities for decades, and it now looks set to reach human-level performance across a very wide range of tasks within the next three years." That is a very specific prediction from an experienced and well-regarded expert. THE COMING WAVE is a disturbing read, but one which merits much discussion and has received praise from Daniel Kahneman ("essential reading"), Bill Gates ("an excellent guide"), and Eric Schmidt ("utterly unmissable"). More information is available through interviews on Axios and on Have a Nice Future from Wired magazine:

https://www.wired.com/story/have-a-nice-future-podcast-18/
https://www.axios.com/2023/09/06/mustafa-suleyman-ai-containment-plan

Suleyman co-founded Deep Mind, a revolutionary AI company, now part of Google.
He left because he dislikes big, slow organizations.
He's running Inflection AI to give us personal assistants.

He discusses:
- Stable Diffusion which "lets anyone produce bespoke and ultrarealistic images for free."
- "Artificial Capable Intelligence (ACI), when AI does complex goals with minimal oversight.
- Humanity's "central problem" in the 21st century: "how we can contain the seemingly uncontainable."

His book covers a myriad of topics, most of which I knew about, but I got some insights.

It's a great overview for readers in 2023-2024.

It will soon be outdated, so read it now!

A very important book, coming at the right time.

Mustafa Suleyman is a pioneer in the field of AI. In this book he proposes that the future will become what we shape it to be. Lack of controls can cause unmitigated dangers and damage when biotechnology, computer science and robotics converge.

This is a book about the ethics of advanced technologies at an infliction point "The Coming Wave".

A must read for anyone in the field.