Michael Bhaskar – författare

''A fascinating book . . . Bhaskar is a reassuringly positive and often witty guide''Observer''A fascinating, must-read book covering a vast array of topics from the arts to the sciences, technology to policy. This is a brilliant and thought-provoking response to one of the most critical questions of our age: how we will come up with the next generation of innovation and truly fresh ideas?''Mustafa Suleyman, cofounder of DeepMind and Google VP''Have "big ideas" and big social and economic changes disappeared from the scene? Michael Bhaskar''s Human Frontiers is the best look at these all-important questions.''Tyler Cowen, author of The Great Stagnation and The Complacent Class''Michael Bhaskar explores the disturbing possibility that a complacent, cautious civilization has lost ambition and is slowly sinking into technological stagnation rather than accelerating into a magical future. He is calling for bold, adventurous innovators to go big again. A fascinating book''Matt Ridley, author of How Innovation WorksWhere next for humanity? Is our future one of endless improvement in all areas of life, from technology and travel to medicine, movies and music? Or are our best years behind us? It''s easy to assume that the story of modern society is one of consistent, radical progress, but this is no longer true: more academics are researching than ever before but their work leads to fewer breakthroughs; innovation is incremental, limited to the digital sphere; the much-vaunted cure for cancer remains elusive; space travel has stalled since the heady era of the moonshot; politics is stuck in a rut, and the creative industries seem trapped in an ongoing cycle of rehashing genres and classics. The most ambitious ideas now struggle. Our great-great-great grandparents saw a series of transformative ideas revolutionise almost everything in just a few decades. Today, in contrast, short termism, risk aversion, and fractious decision making leaves the landscape timid and unimaginative.In Human Frontiers, Michael Bhaskar draws a vividly entertaining and expansive portrait of humanity''s relationship with big ideas. He argues that stasis at the frontier is the result of having already pushed so far, taken easy wins and started to hit limits. But new thinking is still possible. By adopting bold global approaches, deploying cutting edge technology like AI and embracing a culture of change, we can push through and expand afresh.Perfect for anyone who has wondered why we haven''t gone further, this book shows in fascinating detail how the 21st century could stall - or be the most revolutionary time in human history.

''A terrific and important book . . . it''s a great, fresh take on how the 21st century is transforming the way we select everything from food to music'' David Bodanis, author of E=MC2In the past two years humanity has produced more data than the rest of human history combined. We carry a library of data in our pockets, accessible at any second. We have more information and more goods at our disposal than we know what to do with. There is no longer any competitive advantage in creating more information. Today, value lies in curation: selecting, finding and cutting down to show what really matters.Curation reveals how a little-used word from the world of museums became a crucial and at times controversial strategy for the twenty-first century. Today''s most successful companies - Apple, Netflix, Amazon - have used curation to power their growth, by offering customers more tailored and appropriate choices.Curation answers the question of how we can live and prosper in an age of information overload. In the context of excess, it is not only a sound business strategy, but a way to make sense of the world.

Brought to you by Penguin.**A Sunday Times and New York Times bestseller, Sept 2023****SHORTLISTED FOR THE FT BUSINESS BOOK OF THE YEAR 2023**AI. SYNTHETIC BIOLOGY. QUANTUM COMPUTING. Everything is about to change. This is the only book you need to understand this new world. From the ultimate AI insider, Mustafa Suleyman, co-founder of DeepMind, part of Google.''Fascinating, well-written, and important'' Yuval Noah Harari, author of Sapiens''Deeply rewarding and consistently astonishing'' Stephen Fry''An excellent guide for navigating unprecedented times'' Bill GatesSoon you will live surrounded by AIs. They will organise your life, operate your business, and run core government services. You will live in a world of DNA printers and quantum computers, engineered pathogens and autonomous weapons, robot assistants and abundant energy.None of us are prepared.As co-founder of the pioneering AI company DeepMind, part of Google, Mustafa Suleyman has been at the centre of this revolution. The coming decade, he argues, will be defined by this wave of powerful, fast-proliferating new technologies.In The Coming Wave, Suleyman shows how these forces will create immense prosperity but also threaten the nation-state, the foundation of global order. As our fragile governments sleepwalk into disaster, we face an existential dilemma: unprecedented harms on one side and the threat of overbearing surveillance on the other.Can we forge a narrow path between catastrophe and dystopia?This ground-breaking book from the ultimate AI insider establishes ''the containment problem'' - the task of maintaining control over powerful technologies - as the essential challenge of our age.''A stunning book by a man at the very centre of the AI revolution'' Rory Stewart''Essential reading'' Daniel Kahneman©2023 Michael Bhaskar & Mustafa Suleyman (P)2023 Penguin Audio