Unpacked In Santa Cruz
"Unpacked in Santa Cruz" is a homegrown podcast hosted by Michael Howard that dives into the lives, stories, and salty moments of people who call this coastal community home—or have been shaped by it in some way. Whether it's a deep conversation with local surfers opening up about mental health, or a peek behind the curtain of someone who started a one-of-a-kind food spot right here in town, every episode brings something real.
You’ll hear from folks who found healing behind the lens, built businesses from scratch, or chased massive waves thanks to a lifetime spent around our local waters. These aren’t just interviews—they’re conversations that reflect the heart and soul of Santa Cruz. Raw, reflective, and rooted in community, Unpacked in Santa Cruz brings local voices to the surface.
Unpacked In Santa Cruz
Episode 67:Collin Brown on What Might Be The Real Problem of AI, From Faith and Hope to Wally
A quiet kid from Soquel loses his friend group at 14 and finds an unlikely ally in the aftermath: endurance. Collin Brown joins me to unpack how betrayal became a strange mercy, why pain can be a presence without being a prison, and how hope turns from a heckler to a compass when faith gives it a bridge.
We follow that thread into his life today—five kids, custom learning at home, and a coder's fascination with AI that never quite drowns out his human-first instinct.
Collin’s take on AI is both hopeful and cautionary. He calls out the hidden cost of convenience—how letting models think for us can dull our humanity—and shares how he retooled his workflows to stay sharp. We dig into the real unlock about the problem of modern AI: language. Not just human words, but the layered structure that carries meaning between the lines. If machines can wield that power, they can shape choices and culture, for better or worse. We talk verification, overconfident outputs, and the discipline of embracing "I don’t know" as a mark of wisdom, not weakness.
Threaded through it all is Santa Cruz: redwoods in the backyard, ocean down the road, and a community that somehow holds vast diversity together. That geography and grit keep Collin grounded as he explores what AI might unlock for education and creative work. If you’ve wrestled with pain, wondered where faith meets reason, or worried that tech might be making you softer instead of sharper, this conversation offers a grounded path forward.
If this resonated, follow the show, share with a friend who needs some hope with their tech, and leave a review so more listeners can find us.
I promised. I'm not doing it to him again. Okay. You don't have to listen to your own theme music, Colin. Appreciate it. I've heard it. Welcome to the Unpack the Santa Cruz Podcast. I'm your host, Michael Howard. This podcast is brought to you today by Santa Cruz Vibes magazine, also by Point Side Beat Jack. Very grateful for their sponsorships. Anyways, as usual, I'm here on my apologetics tour. Well, not apologetics, apology tour a little bit. And sitting in front of me is Colin Brown. Any of you who have listened to the previous podcast would know his voice. He's a great guy, but there's something that happened. And it wasn't between us, it was something that happened with me. And uh at the very same time he was beginning a new work adventure. I shifted uh what the podcast uh was directed towards. And uh, in retrospect, seeing that a lot of you listen to that one particular podcast that you all seem to kind of go to, I wanted you to actually get to know the guy. The guy that is my friend, the guy I've uh known for years that I was a pastor with. What you don't know about him is, you know, the deep influence that that he has that he's entirely unaware of in ways, you know, the thousands of people who have known and been around him, who trust him uh for various reasons, whether it's in technology or or uh in the way that the our churches worked, all those kinds of things in the county. Um he's a really valuable asset to our community and has been, even though he's very, very quiet. Uh he's a very quiet man. And and you know, just to kind of stick with the narrative that you all have been listening to, uh, you know, what I'm referring to is this transition where I I just really made this decision uh to begin interviewing everyday people here, not not not that people it well, you know how it is. Uh and there's there's people that we just hold in high regard because of the popularity in a region or about a topic. But my focus on really trying to attempt to hear everyday stories, that shift is is what happened uh right when Colin and I were having a little pause on what we were doing, which is a little back and forth about words in the Bible and how they get misinterpreted. And um, what got lost there was the man that he is, uh, because I was still stuck in my story. And now that I'm not stuck in my story, I want you guys to know a little bit about Colin and who he is as a human, and just do a straight interview uh without trying to layer my bullshit on top of that as much as I can. We'll see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, Colin Brown, welcome to the program. Why thank you? Welcome back to the program. Yeah, thank you. So uh for the audience, you know, why don't you say a little bit about yourself? Well, I'll I'll I'll precursor this. Look, he's got five kids. He finally figured out a fifth one, he's got a great marriage, he's a good guy. He's not gonna tell you what a great guy he is. I know he's a great guy. But uh, you know, what what got you here to Santa Cruz? Like, why Santa Cruz? Like what what was the thing and and what has kept you here?
SPEAKER_03:Well, yeah, so I moved here with my parents when I was four. Um, my my dad's grandmother lived in Santa Cruz. She worked in the uh in the post office during World War II, I found out. Really? Yeah, which is very interesting. So uh yeah, so um they decided to plant a church here back in uh I don't know, well, a few years ago, several years ago, 1983. Oh, oh, your parents could say your grandparents. No, no, no, no. My parents, yeah. Um and so we moved up here from from LA when I was four. And uh, you know, it's been home ever since. I think when I was like 10 or so, I said said to my dad, I just, you know, when I grow up, I wish that I can live in Soquel. That's where I want to live. And that's where I live. And so it's home.
SPEAKER_00:So I I mean, let's sit in the nuance of that a little bit, you know, because for those of you don't know, I've moved from Capitola just a couple weeks ago. You know, Soquel is very adjacent to Capitola. It's it's kind of more of a of the river community, yeah. You know, that lives, you know, right behind the beach. Uh what is it about Soquel that feels like home to you? You know, because for those of you don't know, it's where the mountainous region begins. You know, there's flatlands that flood every 20 years. Yep. But there there is a taste of Soquel, and I attempted to buy a very nice estate property in Soquel that did not happen, unfortunately. But uh, you know, Soquel has this piece of magic that honestly I had never seen until I saw that piece of property. I'm like, holy cow, like Soquel is awesome.
SPEAKER_03:It is, yeah. I guess it is part of it. We grew up right in those foothills, like you said. There's the, you know, we have some redwood trees in our backyard, and you're about three minutes from feeling like you're in the mountains, um, close to town, as we call it, I guess. So just the the location of it. Uh when I grew up, there were more fields, you know, around us. And so there was that kind of as a kid getting to just run around and a little bit of rural part of the part of the county. Um, and then that familiarity, I think I I like having that feeling of of home and a home base and something that's familiar and and growing up here, it's always that's sort of baked into me, I guess.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, you know, as as far as the county lays and and and you know, that you can get back into the hills in So Kill, and that's a 20-minute trek. Yeah, that's a little far to town. But but you know, where where you have lived, you know, uh again, getting back to your childhood, how it was when you were there. We're talking vast fields, vast mountains, and you are two minutes from the beach. Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, like a seven-minute bike ride. Yes, yeah, you know, as a kid. So so it's a very unique little niche community, you know, within the county, and and that that it's the country part of coastal, but it's like a mile away from coast.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, it feels different, very different than Capitola, feels very different than Santa Cruz. I don't know, it's I guess a little bit quirky, but yeah, it's it's older than most places.
SPEAKER_00:I guess it is, yeah. It's got those old roads and everything built around it. Yes, the the uh the the the oxymoron that is city planning. So, you know Santa Cruz, Soquel has felt like home to you. Um you know, we we as far as history goes, for you, you know, you you were born into ministry, you know, that that's that was just kind of uh a space that you were at. It was such a part of and a dynamic of your family. Yep. You found yourself a worship leader, you know, at at the church that we both called home, you know, where I was an associate pastor there. And you you were the you you were the worship leader for how many years? Twenty-three year, yeah. Twenty-four, yeah, something like that. Yeah. And so, you know, really kind of on the pastor side, just you know, not just to check the box, but for for again, you can you can listen to a more divertive story in the other previous podcasts that we've done, you know, about our about Colin and I's grief about how some things have landed, you know, with with certainly with our church, but the church in general in particular, um, that that's pretty well rehearsed. But um, you know, for you, you know, what was the impetus to be in Christian ministry? Because that is not what you do for a living.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Um, yeah, I guess uh junior high would probably be the moment where that that changed for me. Um I don't know, I don't know many people that say junior high was an amazing time for them. Most people have some sort of rough go. So I'm no different in that regard. Um it was uh not the most fun for me. But basically, I had a moment where I kind of lost my friend group, and that was the moment where I really began to look to God for solace and companionship and direction. And I I chose that path because it was the only one available to me. And I think that was when I look back, I see that actually as like a merciful thing. Um, because I don't know that I would have chosen that path if there were others open to me.
SPEAKER_00:And let's talk a little bit about the juxtapose there because there's a lot of elements that have been shared by previous interview interviews that I've done of people who are from here. Santa Cruz is a rough town, you know, on its underbelly. There's a lot of uh easy caverns to fall into, and and they're real holes. You know, it it it's the there's there's a dark side to this place, it doesn't dominate it anymore. That's not really what we're talking about. But I think especially in that time where you were being raised, you know, it was the the the holes were a little bit more available. Yeah. Yeah. You know, the the the parenting style in town was not that great at the time. And, you know, the kind of vagabond-ish nature of of the kinds of people who's we we all share a very similar temperament, but different lifestyles, you know, with that temperament, you know, again, a very exciting place, very innovative place, a lot of really smart, smart people here, but you know, the these these holes, you know, the of of uh of behaviors. And and I I kind of want to talk to you about being a kid at church, you know, watching that happen also at church, you know, like church is not this great shield against society. Right. In fact, it might be the collection of it is a collection of certain where the problems are, and and it has a way of uh of centralizing it, yes, you know, depending on who the leaders are and how how well equipped they are at recognizing, you know, how how the snake slithers into communities, so to speak. And and and you know anybody who's been here for a while knows it doesn't take long to find out just how treacherous the town can be very fast if you align with the wrong people. So maybe just a few more words, not not necessarily about the particular people that were your friends, but but the reality of being a kid and losing your friendships, you know, I'm I'm sure that both happened at school too. Yeah. Even though, you know, you were at a private school at the time. Yeah. You know, you're going to church also, which is its own thing, own rumor mill, own you know, little social structure, you know, but then being in Santa Cruz and the wave of what Santa Cruz is on top of that, let alone adding Christianity and a Christian school to that. Like, what's that like through a 13-year-old losing his friendship's eyes? You know, because it's a lot.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, it it is. I think um, yeah, I don't really know how to unpack all of that. Um I mean, even going back to where I grew up in So Hill, like it was removed in a way that was uh geographically um advantageous, I guess. Right? Like um I didn't live in the middle of some of those holes as you described them. So I think that was that was part of it. Um for me, the the pain was so deep uh and the feeling of of a betrayal was so deep uh as a as a kid that it kind of drove me to some resolves on my own heart of like I'm never doing that, never going down that path again. And so um that that I think was a strong motivator to like turn my back on some of those those holes that I saw now as treacherous. Like if if if the pain of losing my friends is this bad, going down that path further seems like it's only going to bring more pain. And so there's a like an internal motivation of not wanting to go down that path just for self-preservation.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, see, and this is where this conversation gets intriguing to me because you know, again, I know you at this point, you know, I'm cutting your bowl cut. That's right. You're trying to buy surfboards from me at this time. You know, it it it's it's uh, you know, what what's the resolve, what's the age when that decision was made?
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I don't have the best memory, maybe 14 or so. Yeah. Um I mean, because it's such an oddly conscious decision. Yeah, it was very conscious. And it was it was a pretty big flip. Like I I look at my friend group that I was with, um you know, I don't know, 30% are dead. Yeah. Um I mean, like no longer living, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And and my audience knows about this. Like that this is this is not new information. Like so, this is at the Christian school. This this is at the you know, at you know, and and you know, to my earlier points, like there was no shielding from what was happening.
SPEAKER_03:No, and I think the point is that that was my trajectory as well, right? Like I'm a part of this group, we're doing the same things, we're going down the same path, but for their betrayal, I don't know that I would have chosen the path that I chose. And so that pain really was the motivator to look at things differently and to take a step back and go, wait, what am I doing here? Um I don't know that I would have had that moment without having that that betrayal.
SPEAKER_00:Is it okay if we sit here for a second?
SPEAKER_03:Sure. I guess I guess that's the what's so humbling.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Right? Like and when you say this is a good dude, like I I appreciate that, but I I look at moments like that and I go, Yeah, but you we have to acknowledge the the mercy and and be humble about the reality of how I got here.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. It was just a no to something, it wasn't like a yes to other things necessarily.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so it's like I'm not taking like there was another force at play outside of my own volition that was merciful that I point to.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You know, because it's Colin and I, we get to be a little bit more intimate faster. So I'm gonna apologize to all of you a little bit. Uh not for the intimacy, but but you know, that this is something that can happen in an interview and does happen if if you've listened to them. You know, we're we're we're I feel that we're sitting in a space right now that's worth talking about. And that is the nature of pain and the process of pain and grief, of loss, right? You know, that's what we're talking about. So there's suffering that comes along with that. There's love somehow smack dab in the middle of it that we're all pursuing. You know, I know your story too well, so I don't want to be saying it. I'd rather hear it from you, you know, of you know what that pain and suffering produced in the face of not knowing what life's going to bring. You know, it's it's a you know, I have a sense this is going to be a theme for a little bit for me with with with you know some of the people I have on deck here coming up, but you know, talking about suffering, talking about the pro the problem of these things, like the the the realities of of uh going through a genuine grief cycle early, which is what we're talking about. Like you it's it's a death, you know, a death to a concept of being able to be friends with people. You know, the the processing grief is probably the hardest thing to process as a human and and people who avoid grief, like myself, like others, most of us right now, to be honest. We're just not processing the grief of having seen things for what they are. Um that process of grief that that you went through uh during that time, you know, this is this is full retrospect now, right? Right, like what what's the resolve you think you garnered at 14 in your humility, which much has been spoken about that in previous podcasts. He's a very humble man. Uh there's a resolve that came as a gift after the grief. What was that process like at 14? You know, because you know, you and I have been through a lot as adults. That's been talked about a lot. But but you know, the the the kid, you know, face facing the grief of loss. Yeah, you know, you know, fortunately for you in a way, but uh, but again, you know, it wasn't because your parents got divorced. It wasn't, you know, it wasn't the list of other things that happened you know, to other kids in this town and how they resolve themselves and and and get strong. You're a strong man, you're one of the strongest men I know. You know, you you don't count yourself that way, but you are. You know, there's a strength that's been in you since you were a kid, you know, and it, but but I don't think we've talked about it this way, even though he and I talk all the time. Conversation worth having.
SPEAKER_03:Um yeah, I mean, I like I said, I I don't think many people look back on junior high and go, wow, that was the best time ever. Um, and so I don't think my story is unique and that I felt felt pain. Um maybe the way I felt it was was unique in some aspects, but as an already quiet, quiet, you know, 14-year-old kid who doesn't like attention, um you know, waking up in the morning going, How do I survive this day at school with no friends?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:And being mocked by the by the ones that you know I used to be with. Yeah. Like, yeah, how do I walk from the bus to the class? You know, like it's that it's down to that like tactics.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. You who has to ride the shame train. Yes. First on the bus, last off the bus. Hour and a half each way. Yes.
unknown:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Call Colin and I have some similarities at a at a very similar school of like, God, really I gotta get picked up first and then I get dropped off at five. Thank you. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. So I I think like there was just there was pain, and and I guess I learned that pain was real. Pain hurt, but I would survive. Right. And so that pain ended up bringing about a good thing in my life. And so here I have this correlation between suffering and pain as a 14-year-old, how difficult that was and how um existential it was for me at that moment in my mind, ultimately bringing about a good thing. And so what that teaches me is that pain isn't something to to run from or to hide from, but it can in the right circumstances bring about something good. And it's not to say that the thing causing the pain is good, but it's just to believe that there can be good that can be brought about in the midst of a painful and difficult situation. And so that creates a resolve to not be the victim of the pain, but to uh I guess look beyond it and know that I will exist and survive beyond it. Um I just I think learning that I can endure at least what at the moment I perceive as the most intense pain possible and survive that um was pretty pretty profound for me.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it it's um I've been thinking a lot, you know, or since over the course of actually selling the house, right? Pain is pain. And you know, through the three or four uh deals that fell through before I ended up, you know, where I where I am now, you know, I put myself through this empathetic exercise as well, you know, of what is what is the pain that this other person's feeling that the deal is going the way that it's going, you know, like what's the pain point, you know, because all of a sudden I'm in this weird fiscal threshold of dealing with people who have plenty of zeros, who are arguing about minimal zeros, as though those zeros actually factor in. There's like some other game going on, you know, in that space. And, you know, I'm not just talking about the competitive game for dollars, you know, having having to put myself in someone else's mindset of, you know, why the attraction to this for the argument that's coming up over 1%, you know, which is 1% that is a lot to me, which is zero to them, you know, of the particular deal. It's not even in the percentage chart of their bank account. You know, it's not even going to make the spreadsheet. Uh and it's been a very helpful exercise. It's been very eye-opening at how little empathy I've had towards the pain that money brings. But to that idea, pain is pain. You know, pain, pain is a perception we have of having not known something, and then it hits us, and then it's a shit sandwich. And you're gonna have to eat it. You know, it's it's not like you know, you i if your brain hasn't experienced it, it hurts. You know, so it so it you know develops through these processes of pain. Um I'm not sure where my question went in all those words, but but well, I guess hopefully that triggers something in you.
SPEAKER_03:I was just thinking I so I I uh I played I grew up playing soccer, right? Um and uh freshman in in high school, um, you know, winter was the soccer season. And so our coach said, Hey, you guys need to like do something in the fall to like condition yourself. So I ended up doing cross-country. Um yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Why? Well, I know why, but yeah, and I it's it's only five miles per game, but I'm just saying.
SPEAKER_03:Well, I was also I was also playing uh in a uh soccer league as well at the same time.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, yeah.
SPEAKER_03:The double down, the double down, yeah. So m Mondays was hard days in cross country. So uh I would run, you know, we'd do what 10, 12 miles Monday, and then afterwards I would go to soccer practice.
SPEAKER_00:Uh do your two short ones there. Yeah, all sprints, you're good.
SPEAKER_03:But there's this weird thing where you I remember doing this once, we were in a 10-mile loop, and you you you start running and it hurts. You know, you you feel the pain in your legs and your lungs, and you kind of just your body is is like registering like, okay, we're in a new paradigm here. This is this is this is what I need to get used to. And after, I don't know, a mile or you know, two or three miles, something like that, it hurts. All of a sudden, it's like the the pain is there, but it's not. It's like your your body has gone, I don't know, it's it's I guess it's realizes that no matter how much pain it says you're in, it's you're not gonna do anything about it. And so it just sort of exists there. And you begin to run, and all of a sudden you're running faster, and every mile gets faster than the previous one. And you get to this mode where you go, yeah, I feel the pain, but the pain doesn't own me. The pain is just there, like, but there's something else here as well, and there's a beyond the pain moment, and I remembered that time that I ran that, and I realized like, oh, I don't need to let the the pain limit me or refrain me or define me, it's just a factor amongst other ones. And that time I did the 10-mile loop, I think I did it in just over an hour. Which it's crazy. Fast for you. Yeah, fast, fast for me. So yeah, I guess, I guess you you understand that pain is a presence, it's a thing, it's not the only thing. And you realize that um, I don't know, a lot of times when I feel pain, it can feel like this is the the end all be all. This is like I will die in this moment. But to see that there is a moment beyond it, like there's the see the horizon beyond the pain. Um to be able to see that I think is is like it brings in this concept of hope. And I think hope is a really powerful thing in the midst of pain. It in on the one sense, it can feel like it mocks you, kind of from the sidelines, going, wouldn't you tell me more about that?
SPEAKER_00:Like, how does hope mock you? Because uh like we're we're right in theme. You have to listen to my previous guesses. I just referenced it, but but like I I want to hear your words about how does hope come at you like a mocking thing.
SPEAKER_03:Well, yeah, hope can can in a certain frame of mind, it's it's almost like this heckler from the outside, just outside of your reach, going, wouldn't you wish you could be here? Don't you wish you could hold on to this or be in this space? And it it highlights the diff highlights the differences and the and the discrepancies between your current state and your desired state. And so it can feel like it's a mocking force. But if you've walked the journey from pain to hope fulfilled, then then hope can be a really reassuring and wonderful thing. And I think being able being allowed to walk the journey from pain to hope fulfilled at such a young age allowed me to see that there is actually a path that's real there. Not this like chasm that sits between them that you can never hope to cross. That's really good.
SPEAKER_00:That's really good. Thank you for that. I don't know what the rest you got from that, but I'm good. We can stop now. Well, you know, I I I mean, just so we get you up to date a little bit. You know, it was a soliloquy on love, you know, and the nature of the service of it. You know, but I but I'd shared what you know Paul referenced that there were really three things that humans operate, you know, faith, that's belief, the thing that we can't truly see, hope, which would be the driver, you know, in the case of what you just clearly displayed with your words, you know, and love, you know, love being the action that we can always take no matter what. But but why don't you for a minute, if if it can come to you, talk about how faith operates with that heckler hope. You know, because that I I don't I I don't think we've ever talked about it this way. Yeah, and then that now that you've said it, it's like, yeah, hope, my hope heckles me all the time. Yeah. I'm a super hopeful person. Yeah. You know, which is one of the things I think people misunderstand me about the most because I am so often called cynical. Like it drives me nuts. And it's clearly a tone that I have, so I don't get to ignore it. You know, it's a piece of my shadow, as Young would put it. You know, that being said, I'm also one of the most damn hopeful people you're ever gonna meet in your life. And it's like, you have no idea what you're saying. Cynical. I'm just honoring the reality. I have hope beyond what I'm seeing. You know, but I'm not gonna ignore that over there. You know, my hope is beyond that thing that we're that you're ignoring, that you're calling me cynical because I honored this thing over here, that it's actually in the room. You know, I'm willing to see the elephants in the room. I guess the best way to put it, and not call it a zebra. You know, and and so, you know, it it it fits with a perspective that I have that that we all have faith in something. You know, we all put our hopes in things, you know, we all are serving or loving something. You know, those are all religion. Those are those are all self-prescribed realities that we we get stuck in or we utilize. So, you know, I I guess in that form, now that I've used those words, you know, what what what does faith mean to you in that prospect? You know, I mean I I could see the easy analogy about running. You know, are there other words you would use because you are Colin and you always have other words than me? Do I? Yeah, you do.
SPEAKER_03:I mean, I guess I see faith as like the switch to turn on hope. Um, I guess uh back to that like chasm analogy, it would be the bridge from pain to hope. Like it's the enabler to hold on to hope. And and I think you bring up a good point, like then what you're putting your faith in becomes pretty pretty important. Um what I learned at an early age was that putting my faith in myself was not gonna cut it. Not not like in a self-degrading, like I'm such an awful person or whatever, just really just analytical, you know, this if if all of it's up to me on my own, my faith is in myself, that equation doesn't work. Not emotional, just like pragmatic, like Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:I mean you're you're here, you're putting a faith somewhere else other than where you're at.
SPEAKER_03:Yes, yeah, yes. And so I I I think faith is that bridge to hope. And if you if you can't have faith or find faith in something that that solidifies you, that is a foundation for you, then it's probably pretty hard to hold on to hope because what realistic chance do you have of ever seeing that hope realized?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I exclamation mark.
SPEAKER_02:There you go.
SPEAKER_00:No better said. We'll leave that right there. Yeah. Okay, so next question.
SPEAKER_03:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:About you. Okay. This is something we've avoided for years with these microphones. Uh, we haven't talked in over a year. You've been in the middle of a project. You know, we don't have to necessarily talk about that particular project.
SPEAKER_01:Okay.
SPEAKER_00:Um, you know, how how it ends up flowing out. But there is a technology side that's sitting on the opposite end of the table to me right now. And it it Colin, you know, he he's he's in his own space, you know, as it pertains to this particular topic as we get towards it. And, you know, that space is somewhat limited, but there's a limitless space that has emerged through tech, or what we're calling tech right now. Um, you know, beyond the wheel, beyond the industrial revolution. Uh you've been in the AI space for a while. Um, you were an early adopter. I watched you. Yep. You took a year off of work and just went. Yeah. Uh you weren't the only one, but you were the first one I watched. You know, it it that there I think you'd be surprised who didn't go in behind you. Yeah. This is something that I didn't necessarily share with him. You know, when when we were having fun talking in microphones, you were doing things. And, you know, on observation, you know, I I know enough about this whole topic. Colin knows who I know, what I know. Well, kind of keep all that away from the conversation because it really doesn't, it's not significant. What is significant is that you've been playing in this space since it's general here you go, public. Yeah. Here's what we made. That was sort of the moment, yeah.
SPEAKER_01:Yes.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. And you and I have had our own experiences with, you know, my silly little thing that we were dangling around for 25 years, and you fixed that in an hour. And it was an untenable thing that affects everybody. And it's still sitting out there, people. I'm not going to tell you what it is, but like it's ridiculous. Because it's in front of three trillion dollars and nobody could get it right still. But it's a very abrasive spot for all of us, anybody who wants to get something done by a practitioner of some sort. There's a lot of friction now because of technology. But why don't you tell the audience a little bit about your history coding? You know, what led you into this new rabbit hole that we're calling AI, that we don't know whether when it's going to be AGI, and let's kind of have that weird conversation that we can have that maybe can make it a little bit more human in its application and kind of where it sits with you right now, because I think look, I I I anybody who's listening, if you're worried about immigration, and I'm not saying that we shouldn't protect our borders, you're an idiot. I'm just telling you flat out, you know, that there are people that are going to build an immigration status that you can't stop because it's going to live in bots. And we're worried about the wrong things. I'm not talking about safety. I'm talking about actual jobs. And so they're just, I don't mean to be rude, but like we're talking about the wrong shit right now because AI is a thing and it's being very quiet right now. And yet you've been in the middle of it.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Um yeah, I don't really know where to start with that. You can direct me if you're not going to be able to do it.
SPEAKER_00:Why don't you start with the the coding that you were doing that led you to the moment where ChatGPT shows up and you say, fuck it, I quit, and I'm just gonna look at this.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I've been this weird uh software engineer that would always ask the question like, how does this software make you feel? And that that never landed very well. It's like, well, it's a sorting algorithm. I don't really care how it makes me feel. And I I always just wondered that like, if humans are the the end user of this technology ultimately, then how does it make you feel? I think is a very valid question, not just what does it do? Um so I've always been curious about that. And I've been fortunate enough to work on projects where that has mattered to some to some degree. Um so when when AI, when Chat GPT came out, um, which by the way, I think I'm I'm actually late to the game by several years.
SPEAKER_00:So Yeah, well, you weren't at its genesis.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:But but anyways, um But the the explosion.
SPEAKER_03:Yes. Yeah, I was really curious about um how we could transform education. So we we homeschool our kids, charter school. Um, the main point there being that each of them we have the opportunity to like effectively customize their education for them based on how they learn, which they all learn differently, how they think. Um, it's been very helpful for one of our kids who has certain challenges that would otherwise be very difficult in traditional school. And my thought was why can't we apply the same methodology to every child to customize education? So I was very interested in that. ChatGPT came out and my head just started spinning, going, wait a minute. This is opening up a whole lot of other opportunities. It is education. It's weird. It's it's yeah. So I I just like my head started spinning, and I don't know if it's stopped since then. Just like, okay, what do we, what can this, what can this do? Um, so I kind of put a pause on that and just began to look at what you know, what they're calling AI. I mean, first off, like they're moving the goalposts, right? Um AI used to mean artificial intelligence. Now we call that AGI or ASI. Um, so the the definitions are changing. And I I think that's a mistake because we're moving the goalposts as we're as we're trying to understand what this is. That's part of the confusion. Um AGI, artificial general intelligence is I think the current definition is something like it's as smart as us, um, artificial superintelligence, ASI is is you know, when it's smarter than us. For whatever definition of smart you you want to use there. I mean, all this stuff is so fuzzy. Um, and that's a challenge as an engineer. Like you you you deal in things that are deterministic, like one plus one is two. That's you can count on that. With these AI models, it's it's non-deterministic. Like one plus one equals three all of a sudden. That's hard to hard to work with. Um I don't I don't know where you want me to go.
SPEAKER_00:Well, let's let's go. Let's let's backfill this a little bit. So, you know, we both have enough of a history that that you know, uh during your early programming phases, you know, you using AI as a tool. The world of technology, as Chris Yay, you know, expressed so well is that, you know, when I asked him, like, what do you think about as, you know, he thinks about the millions of humans that have built this world that's just sitting in ether, you know, all of this code that runs everything. And I I think it's an agreeable statement that, you know, the code there there was next good code placed on old bad code. Yeah. And the early problem was interpreting the layers of code because, you know, because of the kind of band-aid uh effect of every new version of code brought to make their code work on the old code. Okay. You know, so so you know, it's bricks, there's bad bricks. Sometimes the artificial intelligence is picking up the bad brick. You got to go in and backfill the right code, you know, get the right prompts to no, that was a bad brick. That worked for that company, but doesn't work for what we're building here. Um that, you know, that phase of things, I I don't think that that's over. You know, there's still a lot of code on top of code from DOS to, I don't even know what code I know is DOS to Java or whatever else. You know, actually I think it yeah, it was a Borland that really really really tipped the scales, I guess, on the Java side. But you know, there's there's so many uh different uh uh tools in that space that that they're lost on me, you know. But you know, basically you have multiple ideas coming at each other and they had to get integrated. So they did their best to put the duct tape on it. And and then the AI is now working through the duct tape.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so I don't think I'm the first one to to say this. Um I think Wolfram is his name. I heard him talk once, and I don't know if he said this exactly, but this is what I took away from it was the great unlock of AI is not the technology, the transformer, or however it works mechanically. Um the great unlock is human language. And through very, very um complex math, we've come to understand that human language has a lot more uh data baked into it than we ever thought. And my help help me with that. It has a lot more data baked into it. What does that mean? So what I think is that there's a there's a meta-level of our communication via language that we're not really aware of that communicates other concepts and and and facts or whatever ideas.
SPEAKER_00:So that'd be like facial gestures, the middle of communicate like words themselves.
SPEAKER_03:Okay. Words themselves that grouped in certain ways, the way we phrase them, it has like a we're communicating more than the words themselves are actually just baked into those words. And that that meta-level, I think, is where AI is sort of tapped into and and sort of discovered. Okay, so excuse my analogy a little bit.
SPEAKER_00:So we're like a song can do more than words.
SPEAKER_02:Yeah.
SPEAKER_00:Right? Yeah. You know, you you can have a line of five words in a song, and somehow those five words and the various interpretive forms of that are an expression to mean so many different things. Yeah. And so you're saying also in our actual language, human language, that's also a factor.
SPEAKER_03:It seems to be. The math to me would suggest that's true. And what it means is that our language is more powerful than we realized. But I I think you look back in history and you s and you see this, how language has been used to um great effect, whether good or bad, language words have been really effective in in shaping civilizations, societies, cultures. I mean, it's it's a primary uh primary tool in that. So to me, the unlock is really the power of language. And now we're kind of giving that power to this thing we call AI to be able to use. That perhaps is the is where some of the angst lies. Is that is that if this this thing we call AI has that same capability to communicate at that same level, then it has the same same uh power, I guess, that our our language does.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, if you guys didn't recognize the tone of my breath when he was uh mid-statement there, that's where I got uncomfortable. Let's stay here for a minute. We live in a town. It's a great town full of great people. We all use the same words for different things. Or maybe the fear that sits behind the statement that you just made, you know, that language has literally shaped the human worldview and shaped us. You know, we can all easily step into the political quagmire that is now modern society. We can talk about all the psychology and self-help side of positive language, all the stuff that we focus on about our words. To me, when I heard you talking, I went, ooh, you know, because it's resonating with me the deeper fear about words and their meaning, their power, what they're capable of doing. You know, we've already, you know, I I I I really am I'm so reticent to blame social media for our current problems because it's a human problem. It's not a technology problem. You know, the tech is the tech. It's it's amoral, you know, it's like money. You know, it's how it's interpreted. That becomes the problem. It's the humans that are interpreting whatever's happening. What do you see as what might be, at least in this early view with the foggy mirror, you know, kind of seeing the outline of it, but can't see the details. What's the early fear for you? Or concern? I I don't know that fear is the right word, you know, because we're in such a build phase and and it's got its own zero-sum game. You know, um, if we don't, they will, blah, blah. You know, what whatever that is. You know, to to the to the to our earlier benevolent dictator uh conversation before we started, you know, of UBI and and you know, whether whether AI will make the jump, which you guys are not privy to, but there you go.
SPEAKER_03:To be honest, I don't know if I know enough about it yet to have like a uh a succinct fear. Um I'm not afraid of it. I don't feel afraid of it. Um why? It's probably ignorance, honestly. Um it's weird.
SPEAKER_00:Okay, I'm pushing back on you.
SPEAKER_03:Well, no, the it's the whole it's the whole you can't see the force of the trees, right? Like there's a bit of I'm so in the weeds on certain aspects of it that just fascinate me. I mean, that's the problem. That's my problem, is I'm just fascinated by it. And uh it's almost like playing a video game. It's just like there's certain parts of it that just it's really fun to have these tools do things that you never thought would be possible. And as a creator, as a builder, as someone who loves to discover, like this is just fun. And so I'm a bit in the weeds on that part of it, not necessarily going, hey, what's the existential crisis as a society, society that we face with this? Partly because if that's coming, it's coming. Regardless. Yeah. So if I have a way to impact that, then I will. If I don't, sitting here worrying about it is not really going to do a lot for me in the moment. Okay, great.
SPEAKER_00:So this is a great segue here. I had made a statement earlier, you know, about the problem of the West, especially the West Coast. We have a utopian worldview. You know, if if there's been any blind side or shadow side to what happens in Palo Alto to San Francisco, it has been this like, let's just keep building thing. It'll turn out okay. You know, the the the the market will take care of the rest, you know, uh has really been the ethos. And, you know, with that, you know, you got move fast and break things, you know, because things get that can be broken or not, they're not lasting anyway. You know, you know, it it's it's an ethos. You know, it's what turns people off about Alan. You know, I I I I'm neither a lover nor a hater of Alan. He fascinates me. Um he represents something of Western civilization that I think is necessary. I wish we had thousands of Alons so we could balance him out, you know, and there isn't one, you know, that that becomes the problem is the centralization, you know, on the economic side, you know, on the influence. You know, that being said, this utopian worldview, you know, that that we have, and then everything east of Highway Five, um is an establishment worldview of how things were, you know, um economies attached to the GDP. You know, if to answer what tech does, like that's a nebulous question. Like, we don't know. It just makes a lot of money because it's living in a capital market, like it like it's so outside of a gross domestic product or anything else that we could imagine is real, because it's all in ether, it's all in code, it's all sitting on a screen somewhere. It doesn't exist except it does. You know, but that conflict between the establishment and the utopian thing has created uh a dystopia in ways, because we all are seem to be adopting a dystopian worldview, even though we're living in the most peaceful, safe time ever. There's some irony, it's it's weird, you know, like like the it's an existential issue because we think we're living in a dystopia. But you know, we're looking outside of the podcast studio right now. It's a pretty darn good spot. It's pretty nice to do, yeah. You know, like I you know, the the yeah, the it's it just it is what it is. You know, I I don't know how to balance those two things out, other than that people feel the thing, whatever that thing is, and nobody can describe the thing, but it's giving us this outlook that lacks hope. That that's there's this reality, you know.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, so I what I've come to discover through AI is that by and large, tech makes you dumb. Unless you make a conscious decision otherwise. And with AI, it becomes harder and harder to make that decision otherwise because it does so much for you. You just kind of can turn your brain off in a way, and it makes you dumb. I when I first started using it, I would try and have it write code for me and stuff, which I found myself basically disengaging my mental faculties that I would normally apply when when programming, because it was sort of doing that for me. And I began to turn off some of the learning aspects of and modes that I would operate in. And six months down the road, six months down the road, I go, I think I'm a worse, I'm a worse coder than I was six months ago. This has made me dumb. And so I had to like really think about how do I engage with this in a different way. Because in this mode, this is not gonna end well.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, it's thinking for you.
SPEAKER_03:And I I think that's like if I could encourage society at large, like how do we engage with with AI, is make the conscious decision to not let it make make you dumb. And so it can make us more capable, more powerful, or whatever. We should, we should utilize the capability that it that it gives to us. But the stand, the the default de facto state that you will fall into unless you choose otherwise, is it will make you dumb. That's that's been my experience. And that's probably the concern because it's a motivation thing. And if we're comfortable enough, it's it's the world of WALL-E that we fall into. Like I think that's probably the most likely outcome of all of this is WALL-E. I think. Okay.
SPEAKER_00:I'll see if this works. I don't know that it will, so I'll ask forgiveness up front if it doesn't work. I got chat GPT'd for the first time this year by a younger person. What does that mean? Well, they went to chat GPT to reference whether something I said was true.
SPEAKER_03:Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_00:And chat was wrong. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03:But confident.
SPEAKER_00:Confident, and it wasn't wrong about right now. It was just historically inaccurate. And uh I'm gonna kind of keep it at that as as because I don't want to embarrass the person that that that did it with me. But it was just wrong, but the answer was right when I implemented it. And you know, it it really pointed me in a direction of like, wow, things are changing fast, you know, because that as a historical answer is the most inaccurate answer I could ever see. But the answer wasn't wrong for the moment, you know, and what what I had to do next with it. And it was like, ugh, you know, because it neither of us were wrong, except that it threw all of history up in the air. It's like, no, no, that is not how that goes. This is how that goes. And like, no, ChatGP said this is how it goes.
SPEAKER_03:Like, oh, you know, I wasn't gonna argue. Well, it's funny because it's trained on you know, largely data from the internet, and used to be years ago, we would say just because it was on the internet, it's not true, that that died at some point. Now, if you can Google it, it's true. And so ergo, if Chat GPT says it, it's true. That's uh maybe an example that I'm that I might pull out of like don't let it make you dumb.
SPEAKER_00:Um it's a non-confrontational situation, right? Right, like the thing itself was great. You know, there's no problem there. If there was going to be a problem, I would have spoken to it. You know, the problem was not worth the trauma of the conversation. Yeah. But that it was an answer and then it was an answer fulfilled in the face of what was a blatant untruth was like, hmm, you know, and it took human understanding to get to make it work. You know, like I was not referencing Chat GPT to come up with the answer that Chat GPT came up with. It was in my brain. Yeah. And it worked, and everybody loved it, but like that was wrong. We we, you know, based on these language models, like this this is why I got so uncomfortable 15 minutes ago of like, oh, that's what that is. We're we're thinking we're saying the same things, and they are actually diametrically opposed right now. And both answers are probably right. And what do the humans do, you know, in that situation? You know, what you you know, because we you know, we like to make decisions that are accurate. What validations point points do our does our brain get based on our perception, blah, blah, blah, all that kind of stuff. It was it was my first moment of like, hmm, yeah, well, that was good, but it sucked. But it sucked and it was great. You know, like it was like, well, it was both things at the same time. You know, I I had to hold them both. So it, you know, it in a way is a fun moment, you know, to your point, you know, it's in the weeds, but like, wow, that was just so not it, not what we talked about.
SPEAKER_03:Yeah, I the one answer I've never gotten back from AI, I don't know. And there's an interview technique that you kind of, when you interview someone, you kind of push them to where they say I don't know. And there's sort of like a line of reasoning that goes if if they never get to I don't know, then they're probably not a good person to work with. Um I mean, there's not a conclusion there other than I've never heard say I don't know. Like that's a little concerning. What gives you hope about AI? Um like I said before, I love creating, building, thinking about new things. Um AI gives us the opportunity to do more of that by taking care of some of the things that maybe uh aren't as creative. So that makes me excited to be in a world where new thought, creativity, uh has more opportunity to grow. And what does the world look like in in that space? What does my life look like in that space is is pretty, pretty exciting, pretty comp pretty compelling. Um that would be a pretty fun place to be in, I think.
SPEAKER_00:Cool. Okay, we're way outside of the paradigm of my interviews usually. So I'm gonna scramble here because you got my brain slightly scrambled in the moment. We talked about Santa Cruz, we talked about you. Um when you look at this town what gives you hope? Like what what what it was it that you see in this town that we both love that that we've chosen to be at multiple times. You know there's a mobility I think in both of our lives where opportunities to get away have more than arisen and yet over and over we choose to be here. We've chosen to be here. Yeah I think you probably live at greater consequence you know not having moved to Palo Alto or something like that. Um you know which has been more than discussed on the podcast. You know there there there's there's a thing about Pali and the crew up there and whether you fit or not if you choose to call this horrendous place Santa Cruz home and pay grades and all those kinds of things that that you now get given even though you're doing more work to be here than than they might be. When you look around this place you know and see the people and and do the things what's driving you now?
SPEAKER_03:There's this weird thing where it's such a diverse place if you really look right like maybe on the surface it doesn't look that way but if you really look it's a very diverse community that has this weird unexplainable bond that keeps people together in this I don't know really unique way. And I I found that really compelling there's like a a general sense in the community of like being a community even though we might have very different opinions or perspectives there's just also a very unique worldview like physical worldview like where we live with the ocean and the mountains and the way it's all geographically positioned I think gives us a unique perspective on the world around us that is just different that I really value. And I think from that does arise a lot of creativity and new thought and different ways of thinking about things different ways of looking at things and that's the kind of space I want to be in to be inspired by the geography to be inspired by the people yeah to be inspired by this place. I I I don't know I just as a kid from I've always seen this as like an incredible place to be and I and I I think it's like the best place to be and people that don't think that I I don't necessarily relate to which is which is weird because yeah I I I I think I'm I'm biased for sure. There are definitely things that make it really hard to be here and like not a great place to be financially whatever like there's a lot of reasons but I still find it very compelling just all that combination to me is a pretty pretty incredible mix that I don't I don't see many other places.
SPEAKER_00:Colin Brown I love you love you too Mike thanks for uh having the sit hey I hope you all enjoyed that bless you all have a good rest of your day I had to do it everybody kept requesting this one so had to do it for the culture you know we got Sadie on the beat we get a I know be a beat yum be the key no play