The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and Our Future

Why it's worth it

A DeepMind co-founder explains what artificial intelligence and synthetic biology are about to do to work, politics and security. It's the rare technology book that's neither breathless nor dismissive, and it assumes you know nothing about the field going in.

The author helped build the technology he's warning you about. Mustafa Suleyman co-founded Google DeepMind and later ran Microsoft's AI division, so the book comes from inside the rooms where these decisions got made. That's a vantage point no journalist can borrow. Owners who work in tech consistently point to the insider detail as the thing that separates it from the pile of AI books written from the outside.

It treats AI and synthetic biology as one story. Most books pick one. Suleyman's argument is that they're arriving together, and that the combination is what makes them hard to contain, because cheap intelligence plus cheap biology changes who can do what. Whether or not you buy the thesis, it reframes a conversation that usually gets stuck on chatbots and homework cheating.

From our review of 5 science books for curious readers, by Genevieve Dubois, Home & Living Expert

What we like

• +The author helped build the technology he's warning you about
• +It treats AI and synthetic biology as one story
• +You don't need a technical background
• +It's the best book here for a group discussion

What to know

• –The back half turns to policy, and the pace sags
• –It's an argument, not a set of stories