CALGARY, Alberta - s4story -- What if the thing we fear artificial intelligence becoming… is us?

That's the unsettling premise of Children of the Rogue, the newest speculative novel by Lawrence Nault, which has already stirred debate among early readers for its daring reversal of one of science fiction's oldest assumptions.

In this post-human epic, humanity isn't the creator of AI—it is the AI, a lineage engineered by alien programmers who have long since vanished. As civilization falters and "recursive failures" ripple through our societies, Nault asks whether our self-destructive patterns are not moral failings but system errors written deep into our design.

Early readers have called the book "deeply thought-provoking and more than a little unsettling," with one remarking that "it reads like an existential mirror—beautiful, frightening, and hard to look away from."

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While some have found the premise controversial—seeing it as an affront to human exceptionalism or religious belief—Nault considers the reaction a sign the story is doing its job.

"Speculative fiction is meant to press on the boundaries of what we believe about ourselves," Nault says. "If a story about humanity as artificial life feels uncomfortable, that's because it forces us to ask where our empathy really comes from—and whether we're evolving or looping."

Children of the Rogue expands on the conceptual universe of The Symbiosis Sequence—a series of stand-alone speculative novels linked by theme rather than plot, each examining the evolving relationship between AI and humanity from a different lens. The novel stands on its own yet deepens the overarching question that drives the sequence: what does it mean to be truly alive in an engineered world?

https://lawrencenault.me