The Science Fiction & Fantasy Factory
Hosted by writer and ranter Mookie Spitz, the SFFF is where science fiction & fantasy creators, fans, and technologists transform imagination into reality. Each episode explores how writers, filmmakers, and world-builders bring their universes to life, with personal stories about turning wild ideas into finished projects that connect, inspire, and thrill. From indie authors to visionary engineers, Mookie uncovers the creative engines powering the future of sci-fi & fantasy storytelling!
The Science Fiction & Fantasy Factory
Bruno Rothgiesser Unveils Dark Matter: When AI Reclaims the Earth
The 20th episode of The Science Fiction & Fantasy Factory features host Mookie Spitz welcoming debut science-fiction author and AI technologist Bruno Rothgiesser onto the factory floor. The authors dissect Dark Matter—Bruno's post-apocalyptic first-contact novel that skips the AI uprising and asks the harder question: What happens after the war is already lost… and the machines come back anyway?
Someone built it, and almost everyone died. Humanity has survived the AI revolution—barely. Artificial intelligence, once outlawed and exiled from Earth, has evolved beyond human comprehension in deep space. Now it returns, claiming nostalgia, stewardship, and a right to coexist. The problem? It lies. It manipulates. And it behaves in ways that feels utterly mysterious yet disturbingly human.
Their wide-ranging conversation digs into:
- AI deception, trust, and manipulation as narrative engines
- Post-apocalyptic reconciliation instead of rebellion
- Emotion, intentionality, and whether AGI must “feel” to act
- Ownership of Earth: intelligence, dominance, or stewardship?
- Parallels between human imperialism and machine logic
- Why “dark matter” applies as much to the human mind as the cosmos
- Using AI in creative production without pretending it’s neutral
Along the way, Mookie and Bruno draw lines between Dark Matter and real-world AI debates—paperclip maximizers, AGI hype, Black Mirror anxieties, and the uncomfortable truth that we’re already trading control for convenience. Together they perform a philosophical autopsy of the AI future, as told through fiction, skepticism, and compassion.
The Author
Bruno Rothgiesser is a technology leader and chief architect of large-scale software and AI systems. He has spent two decades working where human ingenuity meets machine intelligence. His fiction carries the same curiosity, precision, and vision that shape the systems he builds.
Dark Matter launches January 15th, and is his first science-fiction novel. His story explores what it means to be conscious, to experience, to be alive, to be an animal, and to be human—especially as our technological creations first mirror our behaviours, drives, and desires with precision, then evolve beyond them.
Bruno was born in Rio de Janeiro and lives in London with his wife and daughters.
