Convergence

The future is not coming—it is already here, and it is converging. In boardrooms and government labs, in open-source forums and corporate headquarters, a handful of decisions are being made that will define the next century. Convergence pulls back the curtain on this unprecedented moment, when artificial intelligence, national security, and the very process of scientific discovery are merging into a single, volatile whole.

Drawing on the latest developments—from AI systems that can read your medical records to models that can draft legislation, from government grants that fund AI-driven science to startups that build defenses against AI-powered phishing—this book reveals the hidden connections that are turning individual breakthroughs into a systemic transformation. It shows how the same algorithms that help you reschedule a meeting are also being deployed to discover new drugs, to design new materials, and to predict—and manipulate—human behavior.

But this is not a story about technology alone. It is a story about power: who gets to build these systems, who gets to control them, and who gets to benefit. Convergence takes you inside the debates over open-weight models and kill switches, over corporate consolidation and government oversight, over the very meaning of scientific progress when a machine can generate a thousand hypotheses in a minute. It introduces you to the researchers, executives, and policymakers who are making these choices—often with incomplete information and high stakes.

With the narrative drive of a thriller and the analytical depth of a great work of nonfiction, Convergence offers a framework for understanding the chaos of the present and the possibilities of the future. It argues that we are not passive passengers on this ride, but active participants in a global conversation about what we want our tools to do for us—and to us. The choices we make in the next few years, it warns, will be as consequential as any in human history.