The Coming Wave: Technology, Power, and the Twenty-first Century's Greatest Dilemma

According to Suleyman, when most people contemplate solutions for containing the coming wave of technology, they reach for easy answers, namely: regulation. However, he points out that regulation, while useful, is not enough on its own because regulatory bodies do not move quickly enough compared to the rapid pace at which technology evolves.

He observes that discussions of technology are taking place across disparate platforms: social media, academic journals, blogs, newsletters, and conferences. However, these views are expressed in silos, and “the price of scattered insights is failure”; the coming wave needs to be met with a coherent, united approach (282).

Regulation, he says, takes time, and is exceedingly difficult when dealing with hyper-evolutionary, omni-use, general-purpose technologies. For containment to be possible, regulations would need to work coherently throughout the world, with coordination occurring between different governments as well as between the public and private sectors.

When crafting containment strategies, Suleyman advises looking at the following factors: whether a technology is omni-use and general-purpose or specific, whether and how fast its price and complexity are decreasing, whether the technology has autonomous characteristics, whether it favors offense or defense.