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What it argues
The Coming Wave is written by Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind and CEO of Microsoft AI, who is as inside the AI development world as anyone writing seriously about its risks. The book's central argument is that AI and synthetic biology together constitute a wave of technological change unlike any before it — not because they're unprecedented in scale, but because of a particular property Suleyman calls the "containment problem." Every prior general-purpose technology, from printing to nuclear weapons, has eventually been contained through law, norms, or physical constraints. AI and biotech, he argues, may be the first technologies that can't be.
The "containment problem" is the book's governing concept. Advanced AI is becoming cheaper, faster, and more accessible. The same is true of gene-editing tools. Both are omni-use technologies — they can be directed at almost any goal. When a technology is simultaneously powerful and cheap enough to diffuse across nation-states and non-state actors, the traditional instruments of containment — export controls, arms treaties, regulatory agencies — become structurally insufficient. Suleyman is not predicting catastrophe; he is arguing that the default trajectory is toward catastrophe unless specific, serious choices are made.
What it gets right
- 1.
AI and synthetic biology are 'general-purpose' technologies that can be directed toward almost any goal, making them structurally harder to contain than prior dangerous technologies like nuclear weapons.
- 2.
The containment problem: as these technologies become cheaper and more capable simultaneously, the instruments of control that worked for prior waves — treaties, export controls, regulation — become structurally insufficient.
- 3.
Synthetic biology poses risks comparable to AI: gene-editing tools are becoming accessible enough that the barrier to creating dangerous pathogens is dropping toward the capabilities of well-funded individuals or small groups.
What it covers
Who wrote it
Mustafa Suleyman is a British AI researcher and entrepreneur who co-founded DeepMind in 2010, which was acquired by Google in 2014. He later founded Inflection AI before joining Microsoft as CEO of Microsoft AI in 2024. At DeepMind he led applied AI work across healthcare, games, and scientific research. The Coming Wave, published in 2023 with co-author Michael Bhaskar, draws on his two decades of experience at the frontier of AI development. He is one of the few prominent figures in the field to write at length about containment risks while remaining actively involved in building the technology.
