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We tend to talk about technological revolutions as if they arrive one at a time. The steam engine. Electricity. The internet.
Chapter 6 argues that this framing is misleading.
The coming wave isn’t one technology. It’s a convergence. A cluster. A self-reinforcing system of breakthroughs arriving together—AI, synthetic biology, robotics, quantum computing, next-generation energy—each accelerating the others. The result is not a wave but a superwave.
That’s the chapter’s central thesis: general-purpose technologies don’t operate in isolation. They cross-pollinate, amplify, and spill into adjacent domains, creating cascades of transformation.
The author calls general-purpose technologies “accelerants.” They spark invention that sparks further invention. They open entire new fields of research. Around each one forms a penumbra—a halo of complementary tools, techniques, industries, and business models. Steam power didn’t just power trains; it reshaped factories, cities, and global trade. Computing didn’t just produce PCs; it enabled software, the internet, logistics networks, and social media.
AI and biotech are today’s anchors—but orbiting them is something much larger.
Take robotics. The chapter reframes robotics as “AI’s body.” If AI automates information, robotics automates action. It’s the bridge between bits and atoms. On farms, autonomous tractors now plant and harvest with centimeter-level precision. In warehouses, robots glide alongside humans sorting and moving goods. In hospitals, surgical robots perform delicate procedures. In Dallas, a bomb-disposal robot was repurposed to deliver lethal force—an unsettling first in U.S. policing.
Robotics makes intelligence physical.
What once seemed impractical—robots navigating messy kitchens, picking up fragile objects, responding to voice commands—is increasingly possible thanks to machine learning. And when robots coordinate in swarms, their power multiplies. A thousand small machines can act like a hive mind. The rules of scale change.
Then there’s quantum computing. Still nascent, but potentially seismic. In 2019, Google claimed “quantum supremacy,” completing a calculation in seconds that would take classical computers thousands of years. The promise is exponential: each added qubit doubles power. The risks are real—current cryptography could collapse on “Q-Day.” But the upside is transformative. Chemistry, materials science, optimization problems—entire domains could become computationally tractable.
Quantum computing doesn’t replace AI or biotech; it accelerates them.
Energy is the silent multiplier. The chapter offers a blunt equation:
(Life + Intelligence) × Energy = Modern Civilization
Cheap, abundant clean energy removes constraints. Solar costs have plummeted. Renewables are scaling faster than expected. Nuclear fusion, long the holy grail, has reached net energy gain milestones. If fusion or massively distributed renewables mature, energy scarcity ceases to be a bottleneck for AI data centers, robotics fleets, and bio-manufacturing.
Intelligence, life engineering, computation, and energy are no longer separate domains. They’re interacting.
And beyond them lies the horizon: nanotechnology. The ultimate extension of the bits-to-atoms arc. If atoms themselves become programmable building blocks, the boundary between software and matter dissolves. It remains speculative, but the direction of travel is clear—greater precision, smaller scales, more direct manipulation.
The unifying theme is the proliferation of power.
The last wave lowered the cost of broadcasting information. This one lowers the cost of acting on it—editing genes, deploying robots, modeling molecules, generating energy. That makes it qualitatively different. It’s not just about knowing more. It’s about doing more, at scale.
Here lies the tension.
These technologies are incomplete. Surrounded by hype cycles. Subject to setbacks. Their timelines uncertain. Skepticism is rational. But zoom out to the long arc of history and a pattern emerges: waves arrive closer together. Thousands of years. Then hundreds. Now years, even months.
The acceleration is itself accelerating.
The chapter closes by emphasizing that this wave is harder to contain precisely because it is decentralized and cross-disciplinary. Power is diffusing. Barriers to entry are falling. Capabilities are compounding.
Seen in isolation, each breakthrough might look like froth in a news cycle. Seen together, they form something historic: a technological explosion unfolding across domains simultaneously.
We are not witnessing a single revolution.
We are watching revolutions collide.
From Chapter 6 of the book: 'The Coming Wave' by Mustafa Suleyman and Michael Bhaskar
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