The Coming Wave

 The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman

An eye-opening, exciting and terrifying state-of-technology address to anyone who will listen. A prologue written by an AI will send only the first of many shivers up your spine.

The author begins by looking at technological developments in the past and how quickly the demand for new and useful inventions spread. Electricity, automobiles, computers - once the benefits were seen, their proliferation was unstoppable. He believes the AI in development now is also unstoppable and that controls must be put in place before it becomes too advanced for our own good.

Next he tells us where things stand currently and talks about the convergence of "atoms, bits and genes" - how physics, computing, and biology have all developed to a point where they can be used together to create things we can't yet imagine. He says technology is "no longer just a tool, It's going to enhance life, and rival - and surpass - our own intelligence", but .."we cannot know exactly what combinations will result."

Looking to the future, advanced AI has the potential for enormous good: "They will offer extraordinary new medical advances and clean energy breakthroughs, creating not just new businesses but new industries and quality of life improvements in almost every imaginable area." But there is equal potential for disaster: "We cannot know how quickly an AI will self-improve, or what would happen after a lab accident with some not yet invented piece of biotech....Even if you believe the chance of catastrophe is low, that we are operating blind should give you pause." As he says in the book, powerful new tech will be available to the good guys and the bad guys. ..."ask it to suggest ways of knocking out the freshwater supply, or crashing the stock market, or triggering a nuclear war, or designing the ulimate virus, and it will."

He concludes with a list of ideas for beginning the extremely complicated and difficult process of containtainment. Government, business, tech creators, and the public all have a role to play, starting with taking "a cold hard look at the facts, however uncomfortable". And some of this is uncomfortable, indeed. 

I did find some of it repetitive, but with much of the information being new to me, the repetition turned out to be a help rather than a hindrance. If you have any interest in technology, or the future of life on this planet, you'll want to read Suleyman's mesmerizing book.