The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman: A Summary and Critical Analysis Through the Lens of the Great Unbundling

Is humanity prepared for the coming wave of technology, a force poised to remake our world on a scale that dwarfs the industrial and digital revolutions combined? This is the urgent question posed by Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind and Inflection AI, in his landmark book, The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma.

Suleyman, an architect of our AI-infused reality, offers a stark warning: a tsunami of progress, primarily driven by artificial intelligence and synthetic biology, is heading our way. This wave carries the potential to solve humanity's greatest challenges—disease, climate change, poverty—but also threatens to unleash unprecedented instability and chaos.

For the AI-Curious Professional, this article provides a concise summary of one of the most important AI books of our time. For the Philosophical Inquirer, it places Suleyman's arguments in a deeper historical and theoretical context. And for the Aspiring AI Ethicist, it offers a critical perspective grounded in a robust framework for understanding technology's impact on humanity.

Here, we will not only summarize the core arguments of The Coming Wave but also analyze them through the unique analytical lens of J.Y. Sterling's "Great Unbundling" framework. While Suleyman masterfully describes the what—the undeniable force of the wave—Sterling's work provides the why, explaining the deep-seated historical and economic incentives that created the wave in the first place.

Who is Mustafa Suleyman? The Mind Behind the Wave

Mustafa Suleyman is one of the most influential figures in modern artificial intelligence. He co-founded the pioneering AI lab DeepMind, which was later acquired by Google. His work there was at the forefront of AI breakthroughs, including the development of AlphaGo, the program that defeated the world's top Go player. He later co-founded Inflection AI, continuing his work on cutting-edge AI systems. His position as both a creator of this technology and a concerned observer gives his warnings in The Coming Wave a unique and compelling authority.

The Core Arguments of "The Coming Wave"

Suleyman's thesis is built on a powerful metaphor: technology arrives in waves. These waves, once they gather momentum, are nearly impossible to stop. The coming wave, he argues, is comprised of two core technologies:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI): The engineering of intelligence.
• Synthetic Biology (SynBio): The engineering of life.

The convergence of these two fields, supercharged by advancements in robotics and quantum computing, represents a step-change in human capability. According to Suleyman, this wave has four defining features that make it uniquely challenging:

1. Asymmetry: It gives immense power to small groups or even individuals. A single person with a laptop could, in the near future, deploy a sophisticated cyberattack or design a novel pathogen.
2. Hyper-evolution: The technology is developing at a dizzying, exponential pace that outstrips our ability to govern it.
3. Omni-use: These technologies are general-purpose, meaning they can be used for nearly anything, from curing cancer to creating autonomous weapons.
4. Autonomy: Systems are increasingly able to operate and achieve complex goals with minimal human oversight.

Containment is Not an Option: The Central Dilemma

This leads to what Suleyman calls "the containment problem." The very features that make the wave so powerful also make it profoundly difficult to control. Historically, our attempts to contain powerful technologies have almost always failed. The printing press, the automobile, the internet—all proliferated far beyond the control of their creators or regulators.

Suleyman presents a stark dilemma:

• Unchecked proliferation leads to a high risk of catastrophe, empowering bad actors and destabilizing nation-states.
• Heavy-handed containment, however, could require a level of global surveillance and authoritarian control that would create an equally undesirable dystopia.

Navigating this "narrow path" between catastrophe and dystopia is, for Suleyman, the single greatest challenge of the 21st century. He proposes ten steps toward containment, including better technical safety, international cooperation on audits, and a cultural shift toward acknowledging the risks, a response to what he terms "pessimism aversion."

Connecting "The Coming Wave" to "The Great Unbundling"

Suleyman's "wave" is a brilliant and accessible metaphor for the technological disruption we face. However, to fully grasp its origins and implications, we must look deeper. J.Y. Sterling's "Great Unbundling" framework, as detailed in his book "The Great Unbundling: How Artificial Intelligence is Redefining the Value of a Human Being", provides the foundational theory for the phenomena Suleyman describes.

For millennia, the value of a human being was tied to a bundle of capabilities: analytical intelligence, emotional intelligence, physical dexterity, creativity, and consciousness. The coming wave is not just a random event; it is the culmination of a long historical process of unbundling these capabilities.

• Suleyman's AI Wave is the Unbundling of Cognition: When Suleyman talks about AI, he is describing the final stages of unbundling intelligence from the human mind. An AI can pass the bar exam without understanding justice; it can write code without knowing purpose; it can generate a strategy without possessing consciousness. This is the separation of problem-solving from the human bundle. A recent Goldman Sachs report estimates that 300 million jobs are exposed to this kind of automation, a direct economic consequence of cognitive unbundling.

• Synthetic Biology is the Unbundling of Life Itself: SynBio, the other half of Suleyman's wave, represents the unbundling of the creation and manipulation of life from the slow, holistic processes of natural evolution. It treats life as an engineering problem, a code to be edited, separating biological function from its traditional, bundled container.

• The "Containment Problem" is a Symptom of Unbundling: Suleyman's central dilemma—the difficulty of containment—is a direct consequence of the Great Unbundling. When a capability (like designing a virus or deploying an AI) is unbundled from the complex, slow-moving, and accountable bundle of a human or a nation-state, it becomes faster, cheaper, and harder to control. The asymmetry he fears is the natural result of placing unbundled power into the world.

While Suleyman focuses on the challenge of containing the wave, Sterling's framework reveals that the wave itself is being financed and accelerated by the engine of capitalism, which is fundamentally an engine of unbundling. It relentlessly seeks to isolate functions, optimize them for profit, and render the original, less efficient bundle obsolete.

A Critical Review: Where Suleyman Points, Sterling Explains

The Coming Wave is essential reading. It is an urgent, authoritative, and accessible warning from a true insider. Its greatest strength is in making the abstract dangers of AI and SynBio concrete and immediate. Bill Gates called it "an excellent guide for navigating unprecedented times," and for good reason.

However, its focus on "containment" risks treating the symptoms rather than the disease. The core issue is not just that a wave of powerful technology is coming, but that our economic and social systems are predicated on a model of human value that this wave will wash away.

This is where Sterling's "Great Unbundling" framework provides a necessary deeper analysis. The challenge isn't merely to build dams against the wave; it's to answer the question of what human purpose and value mean when our core capabilities have been unbundled, commodified, and outperformed. Suleyman's call for containment is a necessary first aid measure, but it does not address the underlying philosophical crisis of humanism that the unbundling creates.

What's Next? The Great Re-bundling in a World of AI Waves

If the Great Unbundling is inevitable, as both Suleyman's and Sterling's work suggests, then what is the human response? The answer lies not just in containment, but in adaptation and re-creation. This is the concept of "The Great Re-bundling."

While AI unbundles our old capabilities, we must consciously engage in re-bundling them in new ways that AI cannot replicate. This involves:

• Elevating experiences that integrate multiple human functions: Think of the artisan baker who combines physical craft, creative intuition, and direct community connection—a bundle AI cannot easily replicate.
• Focusing on purpose and meaning: As AI takes over tasks, the human role shifts to asking why. We must cultivate our capacity for purpose, ethical judgment, and deep, meaningful connection, which remain outside the scope of current AI.
• Building new social contracts: The economic fallout of the Great Unbundling will be immense. As Sterling argues, concepts like Universal Basic Income (UBI) will become a civilizational necessity, not a mere policy choice, to provide a foundation for human flourishing in a post-labor world.

The Coming Wave provides the definitive map of the storm heading our way. To navigate it, we also need a compass that points toward a new definition of human value. By understanding the forces of the Great Unbundling, we can begin the critical work of the Great Re-bundling—forging a new purpose in the world that AI is creating.

To explore the full framework for understanding this new era and the path toward a valuable human future, read J.Y. Sterling's foundational book, "The Great Unbundling". To continue the conversation, sign up for our newsletter for regular insights and analysis.