Jacek Dukaj, born in 1974, is the most distinguished Polish science-fiction writer of today, widely considered a successor of Stanisław Lem. Dukaj studied philosophy at the Jagiellonian University. He is known for the complexity of his books, and it is often said that a single short story of Dukaj contains more ideas than many other writers put into their books in their lifetime. Popular themes in his works include technological singularity, philosophy of history, limits of language and humanity, and thus his books often can be classified as hard science fiction. Dukaj's books bear some resemblance to Neal Stephenson's, although his stylistic brio makes him as much a "literary" as a "hard science fiction" writer – allowing comparisons with the books of Thomas Pynchon or David Mitchell. Dukaj’s essays touch on subjects like "engineering the meaning of life", "art in the age of artificial intelligence", consequences of shift to non-symbolic communication and thought, relations between values and technology - drawing frequent comparisons to work of Yuval Noah Harari.
He was made known to the wider public through Tomasz Baginski’s 2002 Academy Award-nominated Katedra (The Cathedral), a short animated film based on Dukaj’s short story. His novel Starosc aksolotla (The Old Axolotl) inspired a 2020 Netflix-original TV series Into the Night.
As of 2021, Jacek Dukaj is also involved in business, being main shareholder and CEO of Nolensum company, founded to produce video games based on his stories and original ideas.