Why I Wrote Paradox: A Story We Need Right Now

Everywhere I look, I see people wrestling with the same questions:
What’s happening with AI?
Is it going to save us or destroy us?
What does it even mean to be human in a world where machines can think, create, and where some people think they’re conscious?

I get it. The speed of technological change is dizzying. The fear is real. AI is rewriting everything before our very eyes. It’s affecting our jobs, our relationships, and our trust in what’s real while, at the same time, we’re becoming less and less sure of who we are. What do we value? Where are we going? Why do we feel so lost?

That’s why I wrote Paradox.
Not to preach. Not to pick sides. But to explore and tell a story that reflects the world we’re living in. A world where AI is no longer science fiction, and our societal immune system is attacking itself out of fear. We’re overwhelmed, anxious, and fighting over everything. The chaos feels unsustainable. Paradox is my way of stepping into that confusion so that we can ask better questions by staring directly into the things we fear.

It’s a fast-paced sci-fi adventure and, at its heart, Paradox is about what it means to be alive in the age of artificial intelligence.

The Story: Kira, Noah, and the Future of Humanity

The story follows Kira, a brilliant young researcher trying to preserve her dying mother not just biologically, but emotionally, cognitively, and spiritually by uploading her into an artificial consciousness. It’s a deeply personal quest, but one with massive implications. What does it take to be someone? Can we recreate love, memory, and personality? Can we trust the technology we’ve built? And if not… why did we build it?

Her brother Noah disagrees and wants to return to a more natural existence. However, the bonds of family continue to weave him into the steady drumbeat of technological advancement, where his well-intentioned resistance often unlocks the very things he’s trying to avoid.

The Bigger Questions Behind the Plot

As the story unfolds, Kira and Noah’s journey becomes a lens through which we can explore dozens of critical ideas, some inspired by the best nonfiction I’ve ever read, without ever having to pick up a textbook. Ideas like:

• How human memory really works
  
• That humans are antifragile but create fragile technology and social systems.
  
• What “bias” means—not just in machines, but in our own minds.
  
• How consciousness emerges.
  
• What creativity is, and whether machines can actually do it.
  
• Why we fear the future—and how that fear shapes our decisions.
  
• Whether empathy, not intelligence, might be our defining trait.
  

No Easy Answers—Just an Honest Mirror

What’s different about Paradox is that it doesn’t take the easy way out. This isn’t a dystopian scream or a utopian lullaby. It’s messy, just like we are. It’s hopeful but earns that hope by walking straight through the fire. There’s war, collapse, and grief, but also resilience, love, sacrifice, and a powerful belief that we can rise to the occasion if we understand ourselves better.

And that’s the paradox at the center of it all:

To create good AI, we have to know what it means to be human.
Sometimes, we have to see ourselves reflected in something non-human in order to understand ourselves.
It’s a mirror we built—and now we must decide what to do with the reflection.

A Story About Us

When you read Paradox, I hope you walk away entertained, but more than that, I hope it stirs something in you, a new way of seeing the future, a deeper curiosity, a little more compassion for what we’re going through together, because the story of AI isn’t really about machines.

It’s about us.
And our story is just getting started.

—Michael Woudenberg