3 minute read | Artificial Intelligence
OnPoint Perspectives: Book of the Month, The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman
Coauthored by: Jeff Mercurio & Rebecca Rosette
At OnPoint, we place a strong emphasis on cultivating a growth mindset and fostering a dynamic learning culture—core principles we consider vital to achieving success. Anyone who knows our team knows we love all and everything AI. From experimenting with generative models for writing to easily executing market and industry research, we actively use a wide range of AI technologies in both our personal and professional lives. For the month of June, our HQ team read and engaged in a deep discussion of The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman. We are pleased to share our top quotes and takeaways with you, in the spirit of continuous growth and intellectual curiosity!
The book is authored by Mustafa Suleyman, a British AI entrepreneur, co-founder of DeepMind (later acquired by Google), co-founder and CEO of Inflection AI, and currently EVP/CEO of Microsoft AI. His extremely high-level roles and ethics-focused initiatives surrounding AI lend significant credibility to his insights in his title, The Coming Wave. We believe The Coming Wave is one of the more compelling explorations of the technological tipping point we’re currently facing. It is a forward‑looking non‑fiction work exploring how converging technologies (especially AI and synthetic biology) are poised to reshape society, both at technical and cultural levels.
Suleyman describes AI evolution not just as a background trend, but as a cultural and political inflection point. It matters not just how smart our machines get, but how we govern and use them. Suleyman provides new frameworks for thinking about control, ethics, and societal readiness when it comes to artificial intelligence. Below are some of our takeaways!
“Properly addressing this wave, containing technology, and ensuring that it always serves humanity means overcoming pessimism aversion. It means facing head-on the reality of what’s coming.”
Suleyman began with the concept of the containment dilemma: it’s not simply about limiting risk but about finding ways to do so without sacrificing freedom or enabling authoritarian oversight. Suleyman’s perspective, bolstered by historical reflection, prompts us to reconsider AI regulation, governance, and society’s collective technological future as advanced software continues to accelerate at a faster pace than we can fathom. One of his purposes for this book is to have us confront facts about technology and our society, even if it’s uncomfortable to do so.
“The reality is, we have often not controlled or contained technologies in the past. And if we want to do so now, it would take something dramatically new, an all-encompassing program of safety, ethics, regulation, and control that doesn’t even really have a name and doesn’t seem possible in the first place.”
Suleyman makes a powerful case that we’re entering a new era, one that demands urgent coordination between governments, technologists, and civil society. He presents a concept of a “containment” strategy, where we proactively shape the trajectory of powerful technologies before they spiral out of control. This idea seems to be driven by someone who wants to see innovation thrive, but as safely as possible.
“Technology should amplify the best of us, open new pathways for creativity and cooperation, work with the human grain of our lives and most precious relationships. It should make us happier and healthier, the ultimate complement to human endeavor and life well lived – but always on our terms, democratically decided, publicly debated, with benefits widely distributed.”
In the ending paragraphs, Suleyman reminds us why this all matters. All of us play a role in protecting the future of humanity and ensuring technology exists safely for “our precious species.” Suleyman described AI evolution not just as a background trend, but as a cultural and political inflection point. It matters not just how smart our machines get, but how we govern and use them. Suleyman provides new frameworks for thinking about control, ethics, and societal readiness when it comes to artificial intelligence.
Now, let’s all grab our digital surfboards and prepare! 😉