The Coming Wave

A powerful model can be copied. Biological knowledge spreads. Companies and governments face competitive pressure to use new capabilities quickly. Mustafa Suleyman describes a dilemma: technologies can advance prosperity, medicine and knowledge while distributing capabilities whose misuse or unintended consequences are difficult to contain.

Together with Michael Bhaskar, he calls this the containment problem. How can societies use powerful technologies while still monitoring, limiting and correcting their development before harm becomes irreversible?

1. A wave of generality, autonomy and diffusion

The book focuses particularly on artificial intelligence and synthetic biology. It presents both as especially consequential because they have diverse applications, can act increasingly autonomously or accelerate processes, and spread rapidly in a connected world.

The wave metaphor is not an exact forecast. It draws attention to a pattern: capabilities once reserved for a few institutions become cheaper and more accessible. This brings innovation and participation, but also new dependencies, security concerns and concentrations of power.

2. Control is not a single switch

“Containment” here means more than a technical shutdown. Suleyman outlines several layers: safety research, audits, responsible corporate cultures, clear liability, government capability, international agreements and public participation. Each has limitations; together, they can increase resilience.

This is systems thinking: a model is never just code. Data, data centres, business models, regulation, skilled workers and social expectations shape what is developed and deployed. Focusing only on an individual product overlooks the conditions that influence its behaviour.

3. Judging between acceleration and standstill

The book warns against both naive technological optimism and the idea that every risky development can simply be stopped. For decision-makers, this means making assumptions explicit, examining possible side effects and preserving reversibility. The greater the potential harm and the harder it is to correct, the stronger the justification should be.

Future Skills therefore extend beyond programming. We need people who understand technological possibilities, explain risks clearly, mediate conflicting interests and prepare responsible decisions under uncertainty.

Your 3-minute exercise: see a technology as part of a system

Choose an AI application or new technology from your work or everyday life:

1. Minute 1 – Benefit. Which problem should it solve, and who gains concrete value?
2. Minute 2 – Consequences. Which unwanted use, dependency or shift in power is plausible? Who would notice it first?
3. Minute 3 – Protection. Define a technical, organisational or social safeguard and a signal that should trigger a review of the deployment.

What we take from this

The Coming Wave connects technological literacy with governance and systems thinking. In WEITER7 this can become an experiment: try a specific use with a clear boundary, an observation criterion and a review point, rather than aiming vaguely to “master AI”.

Which safeguard needs to grow alongside a new technological capability?

Context: This insight summarises central arguments of the book in our own words. The “wave” and the containment problem are interpretive frameworks, not certain predictions. As a co-founder of DeepMind and later a technology entrepreneur, Suleyman writes from a particular insider perspective. The exercise and Future Skills connections are the institute’s own interpretations.

Sources and further reading: Official book website ↗ · Publisher’s extract on the containment problem ↗