The Coming Wave: AI, Power, and Our Future

by Mustafa Suleyman

At its heart, the nation-state, the central unit of the world’s political order today, offers its citizens a simple and highly persuasive bargain: that not only is centralization of power in the sovereign, territorial state possible but its benefits far outweigh the risks. History suggests that a monopoly over violence—that is, entrusting the state with wide latitude to enforce laws and develop its military powers—is the surest way to enable peace and prosperity. That, moreover, a well-managed country is a key foundation of economic growth, security, and well-being. Over the last five hundred years centralizing power in a singular authority has been essential to keeping the peace, unleashing the creative talents of billions of people to work hard, seek out education, invent, trade, and, in doing so, drive progress. Even as it grows more powerful and entangled with everyday life, the grand bargain of the nation-state, therefore, is that not only can centralized power enable peace and prosperity, but this power can be contained using a series of checks, balances, redistributions, and institutional forms. We often take for granted the delicate balance that has to be struck between extremes to maintain this. On the one hand the most dystopian excesses of centralized power must be avoided, and on the other we must accept regular intervention to maintain order.