‘History Emergent’: Local author tackles ethical ramifications of AI
Published 8:25 am Monday, August 25, 2025
It’s not uncommon for authors to change their story ideas mid-novel. While some authors meticulously outline their plots, others embrace a more organic approach, letting the story and characters guide them.
That’s what happened with author Kyle Moser.
“I started building the world of this story about 12 years ago,” he said. “At the time I was thinking I was going to write a very different story about how society rebuilds after some catastrophe. While I was thinking that through I realized if I was going to tell that story I need to know what’s left after such a catastrophe and how did we get there.”
Moser said he began creating timelines of events using technological and socio-political trends and examined artificial intelligence’s role in those experiences.
“I started coming up with these characters and I didn’t want them to lose against this AI. I didn’t want there to be a catastrophe and that’s what ‘History Emergent’ became.”
“History Emergent” is a story about coming of age in the new world of AI. The main character is Janus Nasim — a young teen raised offline in rural Texas by his conspiracy-obsessed grandfather. Despite his grandfather’s objections, Nasim jumps at the chance to become part of Atlas City, where he soon realizes that every resident is connected to Omni, the all-seeing AI, via brain-computer STEMs. Nasim’s divergent mind doesn’t sync like everyone else’s and the glitches he experiences stir memories he can’t explain.
The names of his characters were derived from Greek and Roman inspirations. Janus, for example, is the Roman god of beginnings and transitions; Portunus (Janus’ friend in Atlantic City) is the Roman god associated with gates, doors, harbors and keys.
Moser said he initially spent 10 years writing prequel and sequel stories to “History Emergent.” The novel in print today was developed over the past two years.
“It was written very out of order,” he admits.
“In order to do justice to each small piece of the story, I needed to give it a lot of room to breathe. It took 12 years but I’m happy I’ve done it and I learned a heck of a lot along the way.”
Moser said what emerged from his writings is a story about how people will reckon with the trials they will face as AI “emerges and starts to solve more and more of our problems and creates more problems that we can’t yet imagine.”
“We started with stone tablets, but now we have these digital ledgers that are following us everywhere we go. You can’t escape the past. That’s a core concept of ‘History Emergent.’ ”
Moser said his mission is to show that history is still being created “even when we have social media from 10 years ago following us around or we’ve got AI imagining who we should be.”
Moser, a Barbe High School graduate who studied film in New Orleans, said initially the work was written as a screenplay. To make it more appealing to a broader audience, he turned it into a four-episode, 482-page sci-fi novel.
He credits former Barbe teachers, Jason VanMetre — who was his physics teacher and is now superintendent of the Calcasieu Parish School System — and Monica Kirkendall, his history teacher, among his influences.
Former classmates Drew Bollich and Lee Garcia — who Moser said made zombie films with him while they were students at Barbe — were also key sounding boards during his writing process.
Moser said he hopes “History Emergent” will make the reader less scared of AI but more aware of it.
“I want to accurately tackle the issues of AI ethics and represent those as fully as I can throughout the story so that people are informed, but it is definitely my hope that people come away with a more optimistic vision of the future.”
“History Emergent” is available online at Amazon or historyemergent.com and locally at Paper Heroes, Krew’s Books and Brews and The Charmed Page Bookstore.
