The UK must lead with ethics as AI and biotech reshape the world
Raza Ansari, drawing on Mustafa Suleyman’s book The Coming Wave, outlines the central dilemma: the accelerating pace of innovation far outstrips society’s ability to govern it. Suleyman, CEO of Inflection.ai and co-founder of DeepMind, argues that the challenge lies less in the technologies themselves and more in how human motivations and governance frameworks struggle to keep up.
Three powerful incentives – state rivalry, corporate profit and researcher prestige – are driving unchecked innovation. Governments pursue technological dominance, companies seek market share and scientists chase recognition, often through open-sourcing breakthroughs. This dynamic fosters rapid progress but erodes containment, leaving traditional regulation behind.
In response, Suleyman proposes a leadership model grounded in stewardship, strategy and governance. Stewardship ensures technology serves humanity ethically. Strategy directs innovation towards long-term values. Governance enforces rules that prioritise safety, transparency and accountability.
Central to this model is shifting incentives. Performance metrics must reward ethical transparency and safety alongside speed and output. Budgets should prioritise security and sustainability. Leadership evaluations must value long-term impact over short-term growth. The prevailing “move fast and break things” ethos must evolve into “move fast and prove safety.”
Control over key infrastructure – such as cloud platforms, GPUs and gene synthesis labs – offers a chance to slow harmful proliferation. However, concerns remain that these choke-points are often used to entrench corporate monopolies rather than ensure restraint.
Suleyman and Ansari propose ten measures for containment, including pre-emptive funding for safety research, independent ethical audits, stronger regulatory capacity, global treaties, cultural shifts towards transparency and support for civil society watchdogs. Containment, they argue, must be a continuous discipline, not a single policy fix.
External reviews from The Guardian and Foreign Affairs echo the urgency, recognising both the promise and danger of AI and synthetic biology. While these technologies could revolutionise health, industry and global prosperity, they also pose existential threats – from cyber sabotage to engineered pandemics. The reviews support Suleyman’s framework but stress that global implementation requires nuanced, coordinated action.
In interviews, Suleyman advocates keeping AI under human control, avoiding bias and harm, and ensuring proactive government involvement – lessons learned from past technological revolutions. His message is one of optimism tempered by caution, calling for governance that protects progress without impeding it.
For the UK, the path forward is clear. By embedding ethical governance into AI and biotech regulation, investing in safety R&D and leading international cooperation, the UK can harness The Wave while upholding democratic values and national security.
This era demands bold, principled leadership – not to resist change, but to guide it responsibly. With the right safeguards, the UK can become a global force for ethical innovation, proving that progress and responsibility can, and must, advance together.
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