He definitely a painted a full picture with it. It still felt like it could have been handled differently. "Our test tube babies have their genomes spliced with octopus/ants/amoebas/Judas goats/nematodes - highly intelligent species which lack a sense of self and certain meta cognition."

Can still spin a tale with whatever adjusted sense of self you want without invoking mythical creatures that existed, died off, resurrected, and genetically spliced into humans for space travel.

A long time since I read the book, but I thought the human AIs claimed they could describe a consciousness-optional intelligence, but had not made one. Ergo the meat-puppet controller would have been a conscious AI.

Happy to be corrected on this point because it could partially address what seemed like an oddity to me. There exist super intelligent AIs, but on this incredibly important mission which could define continuing human existence - none of them are in control because AIs make humans uncomfortable. Instead, the AIs secretly operate a meat-puppet predator whose existence makes humans uncomfortable.