Mustafa Suleyman

The Coming Wave

A wave of new technologies is crashing around us. This wave will bring advancements at a rate never before seen and help us achieve crucial goals such as advancements in clean energy. It could also empower bad actors, however, creating new tools for disruption and interference. Our challenge is to contain this technological wave and power, ensuring it continues to serve us and our planet. This challenge will define our age, and to raise vital awareness about it, our creative team used rich visual thinking to share the ideas at the heart of “The Coming Wave”.

The Scrapbook

The Brief

Mustafa Suleyman’s “The Coming Wave” tells the story of our time as it makes it case for the need to contain or even restrict new technologies. To capture the strands of this complex, yet crucial narrative, our creative team would need to create a 12-minute animation.  

This narrative tackled both positive and negative elements of this view, and to do this well, tone was key. Our scripted and visual thinking would need an authoritative and intelligent delivery that was also sympathetic. Our visual style would also need to reflect the complexities in a stylised, engaging way, that followed the books structure. A big project on an important issue, this brief is just the kind of brief our team loves to tackle. 

The Explainer Video

Our animation took the concept of “The Coming Wave” and paired it with rich, dynamic illustrations to explain this important message. Whiteboard elements like onscreen text and labels added to this, adding key details and explanation to our visual thinking. 

Our engaging illustrations highlighted and explained the voiceover, recorded by Mustafa Suleyman, and connected with viewers at a range of levels. Sometimes this connection was achieved through references to classic computer games and familiar modern technology. In other situations, we used our characters to tell the story and build an emotional connection with the audience, such as the happiness seen in characters surfing this new wave of technology, and the suffering it could cause as it drags people under. 

Historical context played a key part in this animation, increasing the impact of new and possible developments, and the whiteboard animation style allowed us to build this effortlessly into the flow of the narrative. As the narrative progressed, we also drew heavily on the ability of whiteboard animation to connect and develop ideas. 

The animation needed to show everyone the future situations we risk, but it was equally important to share Suleyman’s 10-step containment plan, highlighting that there is a path we can take as a society that avoids these potential risks.  

As it concluded, our animation drew together past, present and future, and left viewers with profound closing takeaways. This was a complex brief with messages the world needs to hear. We are proud to have turned it into an animation that brings these messages to audiences across the globe. 

The Client

Mustafa Suleyman has worked with AI for over a decade and was a co-founder of Deep Mind. Suleyman went on to be vice president of AI product management and AI policy at Google. Today, Suleyman is co-founder and CEO of Inflection AI and the author of “The Coming Wave”, which unpacks and explores the 21st century’s greatest dilemma.

The Context

Find out more about “The Coming Wave” and buy your copy here.