In his debut novel “ab initio,” Los Altos resident author Jacob Terracina explores the moral and legal challenges of artificial intelligence through a gripping courtroom battle. Set for release later this summer, the self-published book asks readers to consider what truly defines humanity in a world driven by technology.
“The book is centered around a court case debating the merits of this startup company’s claim that artificial intelligence is deserving of human rights,” Terracina said.
The story follows Raza Mugabi, a software engineer hired by a mysterious startup despite his modest credentials. Eight years later, Raza faces a high-stakes trial that questions whether the political, technical and moral implications of AI’s evolution can still be considered ethical.
Terracina said his interest in storytelling began early. Growing up in Louisiana, he enjoyed creative writing and loved reading the “Animorphs” science fantasy series by K.A. Applegate. Although he occasionally wrote outside school, his early attempts never progressed far, eventually pursuing a STEM career.
“I kind of took the engineer’s path and sort of winnowed away the great creative part of my brain,” he said.
Terracina added that the idea for the novel came to him while earning his Ph.D. at State University of New York at Albany’s College of Nanoscale Science and Engineering – specifically during lectures about quantum mechanical simulations.
“The sci-fi, tech idea is something that popped into my head whenever I was in a computational chemistry class in grad school 10 years ago,” Terracina said. “It was just an idea that I jotted down in this big, messy idea folder I have – story ideas and product ideas.”
Still, Terracina said he never had the time to fully write and produce a book while in school. After earning his Ph.D. in 2017, he moved to the Bay Area and worked at several tech startups as a hardware engineer. Nearly a decade later, he rediscovered scraps of his novel and finally began writing.
“During the early pandemic, I started to have a little more free time on my hands, and I was reading more,” he said. “I had just read ‘Exhalation’ by Ted Chiang, which is just an incredible collection of sci-fi shorts and it inspired me to try writing.”
Terracina said Chiang’s stories left him “jaw-dropping” with their emotional depth and inventive storytelling. Terracina added that he also drew inspiration from authors like Becky Chambers, whose warm, character-driven sci-fi helped him focus on voice and perspective, and Kim Stanley Robinson, whose detailed world-building pushed him to think about scale and realism in speculative fiction.
That renewed love for sci-fi quickly turned into a habit. Writing, he said, gave him a more meaningful way to spend his free time than “doom scrolling” on social media.
“(Writing) gave me a place to take that energy to a more productive place, so I would just start writing,” he said. “Long after the sunset, I would start writing and try and wrap it up before the sun came up, and then go to work the next day.”
Over the past four years, Terracina revised and edited “ab initio” with help from professional editors and family members – including his wife, Aurora Terracina.
“One of the million things I love about (Aurora) is how she helped me make sure the characters had unique voices,” he said. “Whenever I write probably a dozen speaking characters, … she influenced me to keep going back to make sure people had unique and consistent voices.”
Jacob said Aurora pushed him to refine the distinct personalities of each character, making the story feel more immersive and emotionally grounded. For her, two characters in particular – Vilho and Sohvi, a father-daughter duo – reminded her of both Jacob and her own father.
“And now that Jacob and I have had a son just within the last four months, now I’m starting to see Jacob as a father,” she said. “It’s like I read him writing this father-like character, and now I get to see him being such a warm and wonderful father to our son.”
Jacob hopes “ab initio” isn’t just a novel for sci-fi enthusiasts, but for readers from all backgrounds.
“There are maybe certain blocks of this where the engineer in me got carried away and got very deep into the weeds of some material science description of some speculative technology,” he said. “However, let your eyes glaze over … and then get back to enjoying what the characters are doing, because that’s what this book is about.”
“Ab initio” will be available on Amazon later this summer.
