The Coming Wave by Mustafa Suleyman review – AI, synthetic biology and a new dawn for humanity

What is it with wave metaphors? Technological determinists – people who believe that technology drives history – love them. Think of Alvin Toffler, who saw the history of civilisation as a succession of three such waves (agricultural, industrial and post-industrial). The idea is of immense power, unstoppable, moving inexorably towards us as we cower before its immensity, much as the dinosaurs must have done when they saw the mile-high tsunami heading in their direction. Mustafa Suleyman says he is not a determinist, but at times he sounds awfully like one.