Why The People Building AI Are Setting Tech Boundaries

Luke Larson, President of Modern.tech, sits down with Andrew and Jon for a grounded conversation on pro-human technology. Where AI is actually going. What fast adoption means for normal jobs. Why some of the people closest to this work are the ones being most careful about how they use it.

Three technologists, talking honestly about the tools they help build and the tools they choose not to use.

What we cover:

→ What "pro-human technology" actually means, and what it looks like in practice → Where AI is actually heading, and what it changes day to day → Screen time and sleep, and the data nobody talks about → AI companions and the teen loneliness problem → How three working technologists draw the line at home → What building a company really cost Luke, and what he changed

Mentioned in this episode:

Zhong et al., screen time and sleep (JAMA Network Open): https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC11950897/

OpenAI and MIT Media Lab on AI emotional connection (APA writeup): https://www.apa.org/monitor/2026/01-02/trends-digital-ai-relationships-emotional-connection

Follow Built Human at @builthuman for the most thought-provoking moments from the show and the small reminders worth carrying into your week.

Your guest and hosts: Luke Larson is President of Modern.tech and has built and sold software companies alongside Andrew. Andrew Coca is the CEO of Evolved Technologies, a pro-human technologist building technology that keeps people's health intact, at @andrew__coca. Jon Marchetti is the Director of Animal Base, documenting his own journey at @jon__marchetti.

For more on Animal Base, the curated marketplace built around what you eat, how you live, and how you rest, visit animalbase.com.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

I was always destined for something much, much bigger. Does it serve humanity or does humanity serve it? AI has become inherently your junior engineer.

SPEAKER_02 0:07

It's getting to a point already where it can be done at mass scale by pretty much anyone.

SPEAKER_01 0:12

And you might see it as the longer they're spending, the more value I've created for them. But in the end, what is valuable for humans? Welcome to Built Human. The world keeps moving faster and faster. Technology is more disruptive than ever, but somehow our health keeps getting left behind. We're working that out in real time, questioning everything and amplifying what actually works. I'm Andrew, this is John, and today we've got Luke Larson with us. Luke is a very special guest. I've known Luke pretty much my whole life. And here at Built Human, we are pro-human technologists. We actually own a series of portfolio companies under Evolved Technologies. And our main company that we've run for many years is called Modern.tech, a software development firm that builds AI and technology services. Luke is the president of Modern.tech, somebody that John and I work very close with every single day, and who does a fantastic job building technology for all of our clients. Luke, welcome to the show. So excited to be talking to you today.

SPEAKER_02 1:16

Yeah, appreciate it, guys. And this one's very special for me too, because, like you said, we work very closely together. So I've seen the behind the scenes of everything that goes into these episodes. And honestly, I'm just excited to be a part of it here and share some wisdom when I can.

SPEAKER_00 1:32

Awesome. A lot of fun. So, how about we start with this, Luke? We'd love to hear more about your background as a technologist and what you've built in the past. So, why don't you give us some background, what you've what you've done over the last five to 10 years and how it's led you to be president of Modern.tech.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Yeah, great question. So uh we've been in technology for probably about 10 years at this point. Um, growing up as a kid, you know, I grew up on a rural farm. I was always destined for something much, much bigger. So uh technology had a draw for me because it was an opportunity to move things forward in the world and provide convenience for a lot of people. And so we started a company up front that was helping the real estate industry with scheduling showings. It's a big problem for a lot of people where you know they're making big life decisions, they're going into a new home, they're building families. And we wanted to create technology around that that actually helped them. And so that was kind of my foot in the door with the technology space. Uh, as you can imagine, uh your first startup, there's a lot of different hats that you wear. There's a lot of different things that you learn. But what I've always been passionate about is just the business aspect of that. When it comes to building technology like that, the product side really drove me, uh dragged me in because you see it happening all the time where people will build technology products. They might have really great ideas, but if they can't actually gain adoption in the world, well, it doesn't actually create the impact that you want. And so my focus in our first company that we started was very much so on the product side of things where we were working with the industry, what the market actually wanted, and building features around that. Uh, from there, it became a natural next step for us. We built some really great technology. We built a fantastic team around us who had very strong expertise, built really quality products. Uh, and we started having other people ask us to do the same for them as well. And so that's kind of the bridge to where we're at now with modern.tech. As I'm sure you can uh realize, there's a lot that has changed in the past year or so with the with AI being a lot more adopted and just progressing so rapidly. And so now with modern.tech, that's really our focus. We're helping companies implement AI into their systems, into their products, and we're building them technology that is not just uh building the good ideas, right? But is actually helping them find fit in the market and actually bring that to life where you know the the impact they're hoping for can actually be um become a reality in the world. So yeah, it's been a good fun ride for the past 10 years or so, and especially now with all the change that's happening.

SPEAKER_01 4:19

So yeah, I like um you mentioned growing up on a rural farm, and one of the things we always say to each other is that we're pro-human when we build technology, that we want to make technology that works for people and makes people's lives easier doesn't replace humans and their role in life. And I think just knowing you for so long and and your upbringing, uh growing up at a farm doing very honest work, the work ends when the day's done, uh being very humble, being very down to earth, and knowing uh that that is what matters in life, humans, uh people, I think um how how did that translate into all of this? Because you see a lot of people who are not so down to earth. And I I honestly I I know we don't talk about it a ton, but whenever I I talk about you, I think one of the coolest things is that work ethic, but also that humility and that genuine care. You know, one of the things we've always prided ourselves on you, especially is being very genuine and very well-meaning, and then taking a look in the mirror if you know if there's conflicting emotions. And I think that expression is so important today when we are building technology and when we're building with AI and when we're doing things that could have impact in the world like this.

SPEAKER_02 5:47

Totally. Yeah, and you know, some of that I probably did learn from my upbringing a bit, but that's really how I see technology. There's so many avenues that you can build, and there are so many different purposes that technology can fill in the day-to-day for people, but it's really about what's going to make our lives easier as humans and make our lives better, right? Technology can be built for very nefarious reasons and you know, cause unwanted harm to people. And so centering in on the human element of that and building that connection and actually aiming to improve people's lives or their businesses, that's really where we should be focusing our efforts on technology because that's where we can create the most impact, right? Otherwise, we're likely to end up in a world where we're all just cyborgs and technology takes over, and then what do we got? Right. So technology's purpose is to aid in our progression as a human species and make our lives much more better and you know, seamless, right?

SPEAKER_00 6:48

Talk to me about that a little bit with your first company too, right? Like you you you mentioned that it it aided in in showings for for agents and consumers, but what was the human element of it? How did you address a human problem and work towards um really, you know, scaling humanity and giving time back?

SPEAKER_02 7:06

It's a very good question. So there's a lot of aspects of that product that really did focus around the human element of that. When we built that product, we did a lot of market research on what do people actually want and what problems were they having. So that when we built features, it was actually focused on what they needed. One of the things we realized early on, this was something that the market told us from an agent perspective and from the more organized perspective from the MLS, there is a big problem with home showings and the safety security aspect of it. You're meeting random people in a home for the first time. It's, you know, there's locks on doors. There's a lot of things that could go wrong if you had a bad person you're uh going there to see. And so one of the aspects of it was safety, right? We built in very robust identity management or scanning IDs, driver's license, things like that, making sure that, you know, there was direct integrations with the MLS that people couldn't bypass. A lot of that was just upfront. Hey, this platform not only does what you need, which is scheduling the showings and managing your appointments, but also has you in mind and keeps you safe at the end of the day. So that's just one aspect of it. There's also a lot of political things that happen in the world with different products launching, buyouts happening. People were worried about, you know, the systems that they were using if the companies behind them actually had their best interest in mind. And so when we built that company, that was our whole goal, right? Build a product for you that serves you and nothing else.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

Amazing. And then as a builder, too, Andrew mentioned this, you know, coming from between being a farmer and being a builder, the day ends when the work is done, right? Like you you follow that that mantra. Tell me a little bit about how that the building of of uh of showing lee really affected your lifestyle choices. I think Andrew actually said this in an earlier episode. He talked about bringing in stacks of of, I think it was PETA, right, Andrew, where you were just eating, uh eating unhealthily. Like that, that was your guilt snack to get through the day. But like how did it affect your your well-being, your mental state, your sleep schedule, your dietary schedule?

SPEAKER_02 9:17

It's a good question. Well, at the time I was pretty young, and it's the only thing that mattered to me, right? I wanted to grow a business. I wanted to, like I said, I was always destined for something bigger. And so that was my shot. It was my vision. It was it was all I had, right? I wanted to make it work, I wanted to be successful, I wanted to grow our team, I wanted to bring a good product to life, right? So yeah, when it comes to the amount of work involved, when it comes to the sleep schedules, when it comes to eating massive amounts of PETA in the office from a late night, yeah, looking back and then it probably wasn't too healthy. But at the end of the day, like we pushed through and it didn't impact me much because there was a lot of energy behind it on a personal level, and it was what I wanted. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 10:04

Yeah. Totally, totally. And then how in the modern day have you prioritized uh building for humanity, right? Like, so we've got talked through your startups as uh a software development agency with modern.tech, you have clients now. So how do you balance their well-being and building for humanity with the products that are being assigned to you and the team and sussing that out when it goes product to product?

SPEAKER_02 10:30

It's a really good question. So I have a very specific philosophy on this. Whenever we're gonna take on a client and we're gonna build a project with them, there's a whole aspect of it that most software development firms miss. And that's that initial strategy layer to it. A big component of that is actually the human element, right? So when we walk people through, hey, we're gonna build this product with you, we're gonna build these features, we're first starting a layer above that is the human element, and we're focusing on what actually matters to them, what do they care about, what pains do they have. So that when we go and build the product, it's actually connected to what they need. And we know it's aligned with the mission of the company and the goals of the users. If you miss that, you're you're missing out on a really big part of product, right? At the end of the day, it's real life humans who are going to use the technology, so it should be built with them in mind. I think if you miss that step, you're making a massive mistake.

SPEAKER_01 11:27

Yeah, so I think speaking a little bit to that, it's uh one of those things where the pain of some of our early days taught us some some hard lessons there, right? Because it's one thing to uh strategize until the cows come home, and it's another thing to just start moving and start getting well for yeah, for Luke until his cows come home. But I think the the uh wisdom at the time was we have to move quickly, we have to iterate, we have to learn from real life feedback. But I I think uh you can overdo that. And I think these last years learning very hard lessons and not starting with the strategy taught some very painful and expensive lessons on why you have to take a step back. Because I've heard so many people and sometimes successful people come up to us and say, you know, we just need we need to start designing and building and just we need to ship it, we need to iterate. And it's like look, we're not asking for months of strategy here. Like we're we have things you can do to make sure that you have a strategic foundation and that way when we do go and we attack and we iterate, we're doing so in the best possible way. So I don't know. I I think the the wisdom of of moving quickly isn't something you give up when you focus on strategy, it's just something you finally tune into and pay more attention to, and you're gonna learn the hard way if you don't.

SPEAKER_02 13:05

100%. If you guys are into sports at all, it's the same sort of thing, right? Like teams are going to watch game film before they play the game, but when it's time to play the game, there's no more time for strategy. You're playing the game, right? So we look at building a software product the exact same way. Invest the time in learning the playing field that you're operating within, what people actually want, how you can actually build it in a scalable way. And then when it's time to execute, your teams have what they need to actually execute.

SPEAKER_00 13:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:35

Right.

SPEAKER_00 13:36

Well, and I and I feel like you can relate this to any aspect in life too. It's like whether you're building a company, whether you're building a software or a product, whether you're building yourself, right? And I think like when I after I graduated, I graduated pretty pretty decently over overweight. And I decided at that point in time, I was like, oh, my my body's my startup, right? Like, and and kind of the way I I approached at that point in time was um I have a goal. It's to be healthier, to be athletic, to run races, right? Um, and to eat better. And so like I had this goal in mind. That's where I started. And the strategy to get there was like, okay, what diet am I following? Great. Now I have that in my back pocket. When do I cheat? When don't I cheat? Do I cheat? Right. Like, I think that's that's a big part of it. Uh what's my exercise regimen? Is it every day? Do I have an off day? Am I doing uh cardio? Am I am I doing weights? What does that look like? And what am I training for? Like, what are we going to build? Well, I'm trying to build the version of me that's able to run at that point in time. I was I was striving to run my first Spartan race, which was only a 5k with 20 obstacles. But like for me at the time where I was like very overwhelm overweight, I treated that as a nice end goal. And like I strategized on the teams, right? I I guess that would it would take to complete across all facets of life. So it's it's interesting that that you say that because I I view that that that element of um of approaching a build is just very um consistent across everything in life. It's very human.

SPEAKER_02 15:04

Yeah, totally. It relates one-to-one, man. Like in that scenario, you gave like your training for a specific thing and there were steps along the way. If you did the steps out of order, well, you might have had a totally different result, right? Same thing happens with product. So you should be thinking about it up front, planning out, hey, where do you want to go? And then how do we get there? Building that plan is gonna set you up for success in the long run, right? You'll have way less thrashing amongst the team, everybody's aligned in the same direction. And you're right, it it's it's both ways. It's with technology and it's with self-improvement, it's with your daily life. Like you should put a strategy in place so that when you actually execute, you can test against it and iterate too.

SPEAKER_00 15:48

Amazing. Amazing. Let's um let's start talking about the the modern day of technology, AI integrations, artificial intelligence. I think it's taken over. I I want to say the last year, but really been the last two to three years and every single year has been vast improvements, right? I think adoption of artificial intelligence and technology has been something close to 53%. Um, there was a Stanford index study that that quoted this, and that's faster than the internet. That's faster than desktop computers, power or personal computers, right? It's insane. So in this new modern era when like innovation is exponential and it's so hard to keep up with, how do you approach that, especially when it comes to the strategy pieces, right? When it's so hard to plan for the next technology, but you have to build with it and almost ahead of it.

SPEAKER_02 16:37

Yeah, really, really good question. So, again, I would take this back to the strategy element of it because in a day and age where it's so much more effortless to build things quickly, it can become a trap, right? It can you can end up being in that same situation where you're just trying to ship fast without actually thinking about what you're shipping, how that actually is going to create impact. And so I would use it as a tool for sure. Like AI is no joke. It's been around for much longer than people think and been impactful for much longer than people think. But when you're going to use it, it's important that you're using it the right way. And that comes with strong leadership on projects. Uh, that comes with good prompting, that comes with using it for the right reasons, right? There's a lot of different aspects of AI. A lot of people will think up front, well, it's just a way to get information, but you can use it to perform actions on your behalf. Like it's there's a lot of scope to what you can do with AI. And so when you're going to implement it, you just need to make sure that you have a strategy in place to even implement it. You're implementing it for the right reasons, and then you're taking a step back when you need to to re-evaluate because otherwise you can go at rapid, rapid pace and not realize you're driving on a road and you ended up on a frontage road and now you're five miles to the right and you want it to be five miles to the left, right? So I would take the same approach with AI. Like it's any technology, like it's here to serve us and make things better. And AI 100% does that, but you have to be using it right.

unknown 18:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 18:12

What is building or using for the right reasons versus building or using for the wrong reasons? I heard you say that. What what's the distinction in your mind?

SPEAKER_02 18:19

It's a really good question. Um, I think a lot of the times, like people will go to it for information, but they might not question the information itself, right? It's the same as working with any sort of employee you might have in the company. It's only going to return results as good as you give instructions. And so, an example I would maybe give is if you're just trying to go out for dinner and you ask, hey, where should I eat? Well, it might bring you up a restaurant in Florida, but you might be in Colorado. And so the result that you're getting is totally misaligned with what you actually were after. And so you have to make sure that number one, you are prompting correctly so that it has enough context to perform the actions the same way you would manage an employee. But then two, when results come back, like a lot of people are making the mistake right now of just taking it for its word and taking it as gospel, basically. Like there can be a lot of cascading problems that come from that. At the end of the day, you need to be putting your lens on it. And is this actually, does this actually make sense? Is this getting us to our goals? Is it factoring in that human element or not? Right. And so that's just like a very basic example of using something for the wrong reason or taking it for gospel. But like you should be considering those factors when you're implementing AI because it could also just take you like totally astray and not to where you want to go.

SPEAKER_01 19:44

Yeah, that's that's well said. I think one of the other things I've noticed is it often reveals gaps in critical thinking and exposes some of the folks who were not thinking critically to begin with. Because one of the things you start to see is that it takes critical thought to prompt AI the right way. And if somebody's not thinking critically and starts using AI, and then the AI starts to dominate their outputs, well, you can kind of tell because uh it will have been done the wrong way, or it will be kind of a half-baked job. Uh, you know, people get AI fatigued too. If I read an M-dash in anything I'm reading, I just kind of scroll past and stop reading. I'm like, I don't even need to write this. I wrote this, like I can't read it anymore, you know? Like to the point where if I ever write anything with AI or I uh tell the teams who are writing anything, it's like just literally say remove the M-dashes because uh for God's sake, it just betrays that it's AI, and then you kind of think you're reading an output of an AI that someone else prompted and it's uh it's annoying. But that can happen in other ways too, when your teams and your employees are trying to just uh take what you told them to do. And if they don't think critically and they just feed it into AI and give it right back to you, and you can tell, right? You can tell when someone has not thought critically and used uh the technology to further their thinking as opposed to let the technology replace them in doing their job. It goes back to that whole pro-human technology where you don't want to replace uh the human. If we did or if we were going to, we would just fire that person and just use AI for that job, which uh I guess in some sense does happen. That's what technology does historically is it technology allows less human resource to do certain things. But insofar as that you're going to have people using AI, I think that's one of the biggest things with the industry right now, or every industry, is people need to think so much more critically so that they remain valuable and don't get replaced with AI. One hundred percent.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

I think about that frequently. Um, as you as you both know, I used to work at a tech company, and the way they m managed the hierarchy of engineers was you'd have junior engineers that write the code and senior engineers that read the code, right? And it was always a loop where um it'd be be written, tested, and the senior engineer would would overview and approve it essentially. Now with AI and a lot of the tools that come out, like the AI has become inherently your junior engineer, which um leaves you with two options. Does that junior engineer who previously existed can they read the code and think critically and say, this is or isn't right, or I can or cannot debug this, and or I can make this work or I can't make this work? Do they become a senior engineer? Or essentially, is their the critical thinking bug gone and then they can't evaluate that sort of code, right? And then um it's it's almost to thinking back, and I'm gonna date my date myself when you do book reports and you write it all using Wikipedia, and then all of a sudden that you know all of the uh terminology was was changed and altered and uh not fact-checked, and you wind up misquoting something that's incredibly uh crazy, right? And your paper that's heavily researched from the same source is all of a sudden like a moot point. It doesn't matter anymore because you didn't fact-check the data. So I like for another time, but I'm I'm very curious to know how or to dive into how the nation and world in in general is is changing the the way that we teach critical thinking to um our children. Because it's yeah, it's a skill that's not ever going away.

SPEAKER_02 23:35

Yeah, I think more than ever with the adoption of AI, companies need to place more focus on the human side of things and work with their employees to get them to understand how they should be thinking about certain things and think critically in that way. Because yeah, otherwise, like there could be some mass job displacement. And at the end of the day, like it's that leadership level and understanding how to use AI and piece things together to bring the impact that is really, really going to matter. And so that's one of the things we're doing in our company, is just that like we're developing leadership training to help people understand how to think. And we're actually investing in more of our junior guys, to be honest, to lift them up in that way so that we can better service clients across the board. Because what it's gonna come down to is like the value we're gonna provide to companies is that strategic layer. It's actually building products that helps them grow and create impact, right? It's AI's it's getting to a point already where shipping products is so fast and can be done at mass scale by pretty much anyone. I was at a little poker friends game probably about a month ago, and one of my buddies, he he went all in and obviously he lost all of his money. So he pulls out his computer, he's sitting on the side just playing around while he's watching the rest of the game go down. And I look over, he's got VS Code open and he's programming an app, right? So my friend at a poker, little poker game who's never coding his life, is starting to code, right? And so I think it's gonna get to the point where pushing out ideas is going to be a lot easier, and the technology itself is gonna make that a lot faster. But it's that strategy layer and how to think and what actually matters that you're building that's really gonna hold its value. And that's something you cannot replace right now because it's got to be prompted in the way. You got to be thinking critically first in order to get an output. So we're investing in our employees in the same sort of fashion and bringing everybody up because that layer holds an immense amount of value.

SPEAKER_00 25:41

What's next for the industry uh within artificial intelligence? Like again, we've we've moved at such a rapid pace, it is so hard to predict. But like in your mind, you know, we have designed, we we essentially have moved from chatbot to work assistant, right? Or really even employee in some cases, right? In the example I just kind of described for engineering. Like, what's next? What do you what do you view as is just beyond the horizon?

SPEAKER_02 26:09

It's a good question. I think the trends that I've been seeing lately, like it's all about how can you automate the business tasks that you're doing on a day-to-day basis, not just giving you the information, but actually performing actions on your behalf. Now, there's some debate going on about how safe and secure are certain elements of that. There's a lot of problems with prompt injecting and making sure that that's secure. But I see a lot of businesses taking their manual day-to-day things that have those lower level roles who don't really require a lot of critical thought behind them and just fully automating those processes. It's already happening to an extent, but I think that just gets more adopted over time. The other thing I guess I think is important with that is when you're implementing AI for those sort of functions, like it's only as good as the data that it has behind the scenes as well. A lot of people will have tons of data or inputs into those processes, but they might be in dispersed areas or in formats that's not actually readable by the AI. And so for that to actually happen for a lot of companies, there's gonna have to be a strong focus on the data consolidation and just management layer of that. But I see this taking over like all of the mundane day-to-day tasks that are in workflows that don't actually require that strategic high-level thought behind it. Um, I'm also kind of excited about the optimist robots. I want someone to clean my dishes without my girlfriend yelling at me. So I don't know. Hopefully that's one that gets adopted too.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

I've always I've been joking about that too. It's like okay, you get an optimist robot. What if it's a two-person job? And if you get two optimist robots, can and then during the day, can one be like do another work for you? Can one be an employee for me? Like, how can I train an AI into the Optimus robot?

SPEAKER_00 28:07

Like can one wiggle the slack mouse and then the other one just pour you a lemonade? Yeah, fresh weeds don't sugar added lemonade to be clear.

SPEAKER_01 28:16

Like if I want a coffee and refill I'm on a podcast with you guys, my coffee's empty, like you know, and I can I prompt in like chat GPT right now to my Optimus to go and like bring me a coffee and it'll just come in with one because these things, I mean, you would think things like this are gonna start happening, right? It's kind of scary.

SPEAKER_02 28:38

Yeah, imagine a day where an Optimus robot is prompt injecting a clod model or something to code for you. And Optimus is now your junior, your junior dev. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 28:52

You know, there's there's some questions I wanted to ask you, but I think um before I do uh going out of order here, I it's a really good segue into talking about a few things uh that are pro or not pro-human. And you know, we we had a few that we wanted to rattle off, but I think a fifth one I'm going to uh go off the top of my head here is Optimus robots, pro-human or not pro-human, because if, for example, I want employees and not robots writing my code in front of a computer, I mean, I understand why I might inject like a prompt to go and do something, but what if there's a literal robot standing in front of your computer doing it? Isn't that the definition of replacing a human being in the physical world as well? Where is the line drawn? Because it's it's kind of hard. It's hard to think about, right?

SPEAKER_00 29:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 29:52

Yeah, very much so. And I don't know, I you could relate this to any technology that's happened or disruption that's happened in the past. Like, there's always gonna be good pro-human elements and there's gonna be bad. Like, think about social media, for example. Depends how you use it, right? Social media has been pro-human for businesses getting their message out and creating impact, right? If you're using it for the right reasons, there's a pro-human element. But then you got the other aspect of it where all you get is memes and you get doom scrolling and you know, people wasting their time and their mental capacity. And, you know, there's studies coming out. There's a lot of downsides to that. People getting depression, people losing cognitive function. Like there is a bad element for humans of it too. I see AI and optimist robots like that in the same sort of way, right? Like there's elements of it that are gonna make our lives safer and better if they're used for the right reasons, right? Getting an optimist robot to sit in front of your computer and type out lines of code. I don't know that that's going to happen. That's kind of a crazy situation. But yeah, that would be a non-pro-human aspect, right?

SPEAKER_01 31:02

No, it's it's a good point, a really nuanced point that it may not be that the things we're discussing are inherently bad. It may be that the application can be bad and good. Uh, you mentioned something, it reminded me of how you like doom scrolling and social media can hijack your brain or parts of your brain, because as we evolved as humans, like we didn't evolve with things like that. And so putting all that in front of us kind of hijacks the brain a little bit, almost like companies that put some of this bad stuff into their product that you you get addicted to the sugars and the other things inside of products, whereas evolutionarily it's not like you could ever get that much sugar at one time. So when you put all that sugar into a product and you take a bite of it, it hijacks the part of the brain that kind of makes you addicted to it. And similar things happening with Doom Scrolling, it's it's almost like some of these things aren't inherently bad. Like commercial production of food products could not be inherently bad, but in the application of it to hijack the human senses and behavior, that's bad. But if there are this is why we like the animal-based brand with the better for you things, right? Finding companies that have a positive application prove that it's not inherently bad, you know?

SPEAKER_02 32:33

Yeah, the onus is always gonna come down to the human behind it, right? Especially in the day of information, like we still have to make the right choices at the end of the day. You can still make bad choices even if a product is positioned to be pro-human, right?

SPEAKER_01 32:50

Yeah, I this was a great example. We had four other examples we were gonna ask you about pro-human, not pro-human. This kind of sets the combo, you know. Um next one was AI companions and emotional support chatbots, you know, with people turning to AI for things like emotional support or spiritual guidance, relationship counseling.

unknown 33:14

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 33:15

Is that something that replaces what used to be a very human thing? Or is that actually something helpful because it's helping people process through some of these things? It's a good question.

SPEAKER_02 33:27

I'm a little bit mixed on this one. I don't particularly like it too much if you're going to AI to manage your personal life problems. It just seems like a misuse. However, I think it's really good for thinking through situations so that you can critically think what the actual actions are. But at the end of the day, it comes back to the same thing. Like you are responsible for your actions, and no amount of information is going to solve your personal problems. It might help you think through and take better actions, which that's that's the element of it that I like. But it's the actions themselves in your day-to-day that are actually going to create a difference. And so if you're gonna lean on AI for solving your personal problems, your relationship problems, be your therapist, you'd be better off, in my opinion, just in intrinsically thinking about what is the right move and what is good or bad. Like we all deep know deep down, we shouldn't be eating McDonald's every night and we should be eating the grass-fed steak. You already know it, just do it. The actions are going to create a much bigger impact than leaning on your chat GPT as your therapist. So I don't know, if I were to say like a yes or no, pro-human or not, do I like it or not? I'd probably lean no. Just focus on living your life and doing the right things. You'll probably start feeling better.

SPEAKER_00 34:51

I think this brings us back to the point on social media that we were kind of touching on a little bit ago, where when first social media first came around, it was it was great. Did it serve humanity? Yeah, because it connected all of us in some way. And and I have stayed connected with, you know, some very awesome people in my life from a long distance. I mean, like you guys, right? Like you you guys are are in Colorado, I'm in, I'm in Massachusetts, and the only reason we stay connected is because we have social media and phones, et cetera, and that allows us to stay close and us to do this this podcast and even talk, right? Um, whereas now it's it's hit a point where it no longer serves humanity. And we'll we'll get into this a little bit with the doom scrolling. But um, when we use AI in a sense, even as as a friend and a shoulder to lean on, at first you can view it as like, okay, it it takes the the lonely and gives them, gives them a voice, gives them a sounding board, and help can help kind of spur along and give them some energy back and some hope. But at what point does that then become an over-reliance where all of a sudden it is your only hope and you're not using it as a way and a means to like have energy and go out into the world and be connected to the world and be connected to people, to the sun, to the ocean, etc. But you get sucked into this world of, you know, really a simulation, whether we're already in one or we're getting into a deeper level, right? It's like it's you just hopping further into this alternate reality where all of a sudden you have a false perception of everything, and that can make the pain harder almost to deal to deal with because you don't take it head on.

SPEAKER_02 36:31

Yeah, I think there's an emotional layer of it too, right? Like if you're using AIs, your therapists, very logical things, it might lead you in the right train of thought to take better actions. There's an emotional element of it too. Like, you might want to ask a real human if they've been in a similar situation because there's the emotional things that they might have gone through and they might have tips that the AI is just not going to give you because it's thinking very logically based off of your inputs and it's not really reading and reacting to hey, what situation is this person actually in and what are they feeling in this moment? You know what I mean? Yeah. So that's yeah, that's a piece of it too. That I don't know, we need to. I'm very strong recently about everyone should be leveraging AI at this point. If you're not, you're just not taking advantage of the most recent tech, and there's a lot of positive benefits to it. But don't miss sight of actually living your life. Like you said, like get outside, touch some grass, talk to some real humans. It's great to do this with you on this podcast, John. Yeah. But when we're in person, man, it's a hell of a lot better, right? So use the tech for what it's beneficial for, but don't forget that you're still a human living on a physical world. Go go outside a little bit, seek human connection. It's hard to get it like this sometimes.

SPEAKER_01 37:49

Yeah, you know, we're we're alive as humans, and what's the primary expression of our humanity? It's how we feel. And how we feel, I guess you could argue, may be impacted by how we create meaning, how we attach significance to things. Uh, and so in some respect, we do that based off of information and how we process information. And so if AI can help us sort us through some of that processing and help us with some of that information, I I think there is a chance that it could be really helpful. But in the end, what what is it? Like our bodies uh process about like a billion bits of information, but our conscious mind only sees like a hundred, I don't know, uh like fifty bits a per second, something crazy. So it's almost like a billion times more information is hitting us than we're actually using to think and actually using to process. So it's like in some respect, we see things that are such a narrow sliver of reality in the end, that's more of a reflection of us and who we are and what our values are as humans. So in some respect, too, it's like the AI could be self-reinforcing. Like it might be giving you the information that you have kind of already enforced for it to give you as opposed to helping you find things that you wouldn't have otherwise found. So I think in the end, the only way around that is internal. It's considering your state of being, your who you are, right? Internal introspection that might then lead you to find new information, whether it's from the AI or whether it's from somewhere else. So I think in a roundabout way of saying, like on the surface, I really want to say yes as well. But I think I and for that reason I lean no as well, Luke.

SPEAKER_00 39:46

Beautiful. And so for the next example of does it serve humanity or does humanity serve it? Dune scrolling and algorithmic recommendations, right? I I really shouldn't call it doom scrolling, like infinite scrolling algorithmic recommendations, right? When you're building something in a tech space, you want people to engage, you measure uh your KPI and DAUs, daily active users, right? How many people are actually using the product? Is it useful for people? But now we've gotten to a point where in order to get people on the platform engaged, showing them content, we have to show them the content that they need to see. Now, whether they they can find the content that they want to see much quicker, but then there's the other thing is but does that hook them in much longer than they want? So, Luke, tell us, is this something that serves humanity or does humanity serve it?

SPEAKER_02 40:38

Yeah, doom scrolling is definitely not one that serves humanity. But again, like you can't just say, hey, this doesn't serve humanity. I'm a victim now, I'm screwed. Like, take it back to what Andrew was just saying. Like, your deep introspection actually matters, and your actions actually matter too, right? So the algorithm is going to feed you what you're after and searching for. So if you start searching for better things, well, the algorithm couldn't become beneficial for you in that sense and give you the information that you need at the time. But the way that most people use the scrolling and the social media apps is not that at all, right? It's I've been thinking this for so long. Now my feed shows me this. It's just gonna be an endless loop of that thing and never actually progress or lead them to think different things. So, I mean, limit your time, man. That's it's fun and crazy.

SPEAKER_01 41:36

Because as a platform, you do want a higher amount of daily active users as well as screen time. And you might see it as hey, the longer they're spending, the more value I've created for them in terms of the content, the better my algorithm is, the better my platform is for them. But in the end, it comes back to that philosophical like what is valuable for humans. And as humans, if we prioritize things like being in the sun, in nature, active, not on our phones all the time, not indoors all the time, then there's really no way that doing better at the antithesis to that is better for humans. And so then there's just a massive conflict of interest.

SPEAKER_02 42:27

Yeah, and it's it's built to keep people engaged, it's built to profit, right? The actual transformation is gonna happen off of those platforms. I mean, you can argue like YouTube might be a good example where you know spending some time in videos can actually bring value because it's a lot longer form. There's a lot of how-to stuff going on there. But if we're talking the short clips, the scrolling, you're not gonna get enough information that you take action on in that sort of format. So the actual value you're gonna get is off of that platform. So the entire platforms driven around creating profit doesn't have the end user in mind, right? It's how do you market, how do you grab attention, how do you keep them there because that's how they make money.

SPEAKER_00 43:07

I think there's one powerful kind of example that comes to mind as far as like solidifying for me that humanity serves the technology in this space. And it's the fact that I I'm a a doom scroller on on Twitter, I guess X. Um, I it's an addiction, I'll admit that. Um, every single time I close the app, or at least for the last few weeks, I've like acknowledged, okay, I've just scrolled it for an hour or or however long. Tell myself, and I I I this is in practice, I I try to tell myself one thing that that I've I've read on on Twitter within that that last hour. I really I the recalls close to zero. Almost never can I actually say, Oh, I read something interesting, because it's just short bursts of attention, attention, attention, dopamine, dopamine, dopamine. And then I can never come back to it, but why was any of that important? And Funny because I used to love social media back in the day where it was a feed that you it hadn't end. You check it once a day, it might be 10 minutes, might be 30 minutes, but it had an end. It was only the people you cared about. Now it's everyone in the world just showing face in your your feed, and you can't remember, it's just too much attention and it just rots away your brain, and it is so difficult. It keeps you hooked, but there's no actual value coming back or very, very little.

SPEAKER_02 44:25

Agreed.

SPEAKER_00 44:28

Beautiful.

SPEAKER_01 44:29

Well, maybe not. I think the uh exactly maybe not. I think uh in a very related way, our next one was uh productivity tools. You know, do they lead to an always-on culture that kind of again is the antithesis of what's good for humanity, or do they keep us more connected in a similar way to like we were just saying, you know, being remote, we get to interface a lot better. We're talking things, you know, things we use on a daily level, whether it's email or Slack or like our project management softwares, things that are technologically enhancing the workflow. Um I guess just to kick off, this one I'm a little bit less concerned with. I think tools, technology, innovation, these are things that going back to our roots, I'm in favor for. I like these kind of things.

SPEAKER_02 45:23

I do as well. Yeah, we wouldn't be able to do what we're doing today as a human race without it. Right? Like the fact that we're all in different locations right now and can come bring our minds together and have conversations like this, that's pro-human for sure, right? Like, like I said at the beginning of this, technology is meant to aid in making our lives easier and improving our lives. Productivity tool is 100% something that does that.

SPEAKER_00 45:48

I sit probably flat in the middle because I agree with you from that perspective that it makes our lives easier and all of this possible. But I I think back to my times in office pre-COVID, where you might work late, you might come in early. It doesn't matter. You're working for a long time. And then all of a sudden, you would close your laptop, you'd leave the office, and you'd be able to focus on your family or your friends or whatever it is. And all of a sudden, you're not thinking of anything, not until you log in the next day. So I I have this opinion where productivity tools are great, they're very helpful, but how helpful? Now all of a sudden you're accessible all the time, right? It's kind of like the move to uh cell phones and smartphones, and it just gets to a moment where like all of a sudden you can't turn off stressors and you have a million tabs open, you have a million to-do tasks, and none of it feels productive. Like even again, before uh before work from home and when we were working in the office, everything that needed to be solved outside of the office, none of it really mattered, right? Like if there was a task to do, it wouldn't kill revenue, it wouldn't ruin the site. You know, matter of fact, you were probably spending more time in the office those days that you needed to, which was fantastic. I think there's an effort of balance that needs to be achieved between the two of them. And we're not there yet. We haven't swung the pendulum back to true balance and what that means. Now you can snooze it and put your off hours and all that, but in the back of your mind, it's still, oh, I gotta check it, you know.

SPEAKER_02 47:22

Yeah, fair point. I honestly, man, like I'm pro technology for sure. Like it makes us makes our lives way, way better. Like, yeah, come on. Anyone who disagrees with that is just totally delusional. Like it's the whole world revolves around it right now. But when it comes to situations like that, again, like I put it back on the human behind it, right? Like, you gotta be able to set boundaries. The tech is always there. Yeah. I used to, I don't do this anymore, but a long time ago, I had a problem with hey, I was constantly checking and I was working really long hours and I was didn't have any time to de-stress or spend time with my girlfriend or take my dog on locks, things like that. I just put my phone in the other room. It's like, yeah, I know Slack's there. I know I'm probably getting pinged from Slack, but I'll be able to get to it when I wake up in the morning, right? So I don't necessarily know that we need to rely on the technology progressing or improving to handle that specific scenario. I think we all just need to take a little bit of ownership over our lives. And if we're having that problem, we're not able to detach, and it is affecting our daily lives, our emotional state of being, like set a boundary and stick to it for a while. Right? There's there's seasons we go through, right? There are periods of time where it's like, dude, all I'm focused on right now is business and there's a really big project we're working on or something, and we have to dive in and you put in the work and you have Slack open all night, cool. It's a seasonal life. You get through it. And then there's other times where you're just unnecessarily checking and you're creating strain on your relationships and all that sort of stuff. So you just have to be aware of how you're feeling and you know, place some ownership back on yourself and make the right choices, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:03

And that's where technology can serve technology in a sense, because I do not have the self-control to do that. But what I'm gonna try in the very near future is buying one of those bricks so that I can actually like brick my phone and like put it down because that once my phone is down, like the work goes away and in essence, and then also all the distractions. Like I was just saying, how much I scroll on X or Twitter. It's just like all of the distractions disappear because it's not replacing one with the other is being able to completely get off of it. And I know I like honestly, even doing that in the middle of the workday, so I'm not like responding to I don't even respond to tax in the middle of the workday. Who cares? Brick break the phone, put it down. I have Slack on my computer, work right off that, right? So it's all um use technology to help technology, but like finding balance is is important.

SPEAKER_02 49:52

For sure. And that's a really good concept, too, of building technology that actually serves people because in that situation, that little brick physical device, like it's solving the problem of being able to go on your screen time and saying, hey, give me more time, or waking up in the morning. There's an alarm clock thing that I actually just bought because I have a problem in the morning sometimes after late night, yeah, uh hitting the snooze over and over. And there's a physical block that, hey, I go touch and then it locks my screen for a little bit. So that's how we should be looking at building the technology is not just, hey, how do we solve a surface level problem and profit off of this, but how do we do how do we profit off of this while also bringing impact to humans? The brick example is a fantastic one.

unknown 50:37

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 50:39

Totally agree. And then so our last topic here for does it serve humanity or does humanity serve it? Wearables and health trackings. So um I don't know if if you actually have any of this, Luke. I do have an aura ring. I do use an aura ring, so I could provide perspective, obviously. Um, but what are your thoughts on using wearables as a technology that could serve humanity or perhaps does quite the opposite despite its mission?

SPEAKER_02 51:09

That's a really good question. So personally, I haven't invested too, too much into wearable technology. I had an Apple Watch at one time. I sense have stopped wearing it. There were elements of it that I did like. Uh, particularly, they have like a mindfulness thing on there where it'll focus on your breath and it'll make sure you're inhaling, exhaling at certain speeds, like things like that that I actually that tied to an action I was taking, I found useful.

unknown 51:37

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 51:37

But then there were other things I was tracking, like what was my heart rate overnight, or what was my oxygen levels, or my breath rate while I was sleeping. Who cares? Like, what impact did that have on me? It was just extra information that didn't really do anything. And I wasn't like it didn't really help me take action on anything specifically. And so I don't know, I just I started getting to a point with the wearable tech that it was like as long as you are placing that deep introspection in yourself, some of it can just be noise.

SPEAKER_01 52:13

Yeah, I I think of it like it's dependent on your goals what information is valuable to you. That's why um it's I I don't see it as a one size fit all very well. And I think in marketing and in uh discussions with friends, people get really into it and then they just assume like you all everyone should do this, you have to do this. I actually just think it depends. And I'll I'll I'll give you an example. Like we were talking to a lot of the people who've done carnivore diets and or strict ketogenic dieting, and then some of the people who are a little more flexible, animal-based folks, and we always kind of go back to well, what are your goals, right? Because if you state that your goal is to lose weight and uh or to improve or heal some kind of metabolic dysregulation, well, go on an elimination diet, you know, go go all in on that. Don't just be flexible, go all in.

unknown 53:08

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 53:08

And it's very similar for some of these wearables, uh, I have to say. Like if you are training for something, if you're running every day and you're really into how you're recovering and how your performance is, then maybe some of those metrics would be really nice for you.

unknown 53:23

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 53:23

And maybe it would outweigh whatever inconvenience or anything else that would uh prevent you from wanting to do it. But then if you're just living life and you feel good and you don't really care to clutter your brain with some ancillary information, then maybe it's just not a good thing for you to do.

unknown 53:40

Uh-huh.

SPEAKER_01 53:41

I think where I've struck a balance because I'm not necessarily in pursuit of any such goal that uh would kind of make me really extract value or at least have fun with some of that information. I've settled for having an eight sleep bed. So like at least I have this technology where when I'm sleeping, it's it's doing certain things that's optimizing my sleep. But day to day, during the day, I haven't brought myself to to wear anything or have that constant feedback loop, you know?

SPEAKER_00 54:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 54:13

Yeah, John, I'd be curious on the O ring side of things because that's one of the ones where it's giving you a lot of data. Like, have you been able to improve your sleep using it, or you find use in it?

SPEAKER_00 54:25

Yeah. So I'll actually start by talking about the Apple Watch, because I too had that and I used it for fitness goals. But among the the same vein of um, you know, at what point is is technology, does technology not serve humidity any longer? It was great for tracking calories, great for like pushing myself harder. If I'd go on a run, I'd go for workout. I would work work out like say 30 more minutes or run like three more miles because oh, I'm at 600 calories. I wanted to be at 750 burn. Like, screw that. Like, let's keep going, let's find more workouts. So I use it as like a gamification tool, which was phenomenal. Now, the downside why I'd never recommend an Apple Watch for this is because I kept getting notifications on it. So no matter where I went, what I did, all of a sudden I was still very connected to everything and everyone, despite like I that was my time. And so Apple Watch very uh quickly did not become the the solution I was looking for and has not been very, very productive. Um, I think the the Whoop founder uh said it was intentional that they uh design a watch without without a face, right? Like so uh that there is nothing to distract you and it is purely the goals that you're trying to achieve. Now, bring us the aura. Obviously, it's a it's a watch without a face if you want to call it a watch, right? Um, I like it a lot. I don't check it nearly as much as I should, like check check the app, and because I find there's almost too much information for me to uh to take in. And a lot of it is like, well, what does this mean? HRV, for instance. I still don't really know what it means. I know directionally what the numbers should suggest, but it tells me that every single day, and I'm still not sure what it is. Now, I think probably the biggest benefit I I've seen from it is I have sleep scores, and sleep scores directly tied to my heart rates, and I get a sense of what my heart rate becomes based on what I eat and what I drink, right? Like for instance, uh, you know, my heart rate after a long weekend at a at a Bruins game or or something similar is certainly much higher at night. And I can tell you a few reasons for that. Um, and then the sleep score is much lower, but it's already telling me a lot I already know. But what it isn't telling me is how long it takes to recover, or what it is now telling me that I didn't already know is how long it takes to recover. For instance, right now, I think I have a sleep debt of like three or four hours, right? So I don't feel guilty for sleeping in on a Saturday or a Sunday way longer than I want to because I need to make up that sleep debt. And then I feel a lot better. And now when I'm uh sleeping during the week and falling asleep at better hours, waking up at better hours, I know that it's real sleep and I'm not still catching up. So now I can kind of pick up on those signals and I feel better about, oh, why am I always waking up tired? Why am I always waking up tired? Well, I have clear signals on how I can change that, right? And I think one thing I've been trying to do, I haven't mastered, is get to sleep earlier in within within the night because like sleep before uh 10 p.m. is more aligned with your circadian rhythm and therefore much better sleep, especially when you have sunlight creeping through the windows uh in the morning. So like that's a goal I strive to, and I always feel better when I do it. It'll be the same exact time. If I sleep 12 to 8 or you know, 10 to 6, it'll be the same eight-hour interval. But I know and I've I've seen kind of the sleep score and how deep I'm sleeping too throughout the night, because I can see those trends when I'm awake, when I'm in deep sleep, when when I'm in REM sleep, I can see all of that and how much it improves. So I've personally enjoyed it a lot. I think it makes a ton of sense, but you have to hold yourself accountable in checking it and making sure that like whatever your goal is, you're it's serving you and you're looking specifically at those numbers and gamifying it a little bit.

SPEAKER_02 58:08

Yeah, you brought up a good point there too. There's an element of it that I might have been neglecting, which is the data isn't just showing you like real time this is what it was, but it's also showing you how big the impact might be. Yeah. And I think that alone people can find a lot of value in because there are concepts like, yeah, you shouldn't drink alcohol before bed, your sleep will be worse. But unless you have something that you track at least for a period of time to show you how much worse, they might not take a different action and not drink before bed, right? Because they might not see how bad it actually is. And over time those things can build up. So I think that like whether you use it long term or not, like there is potentially a nice benefit there of like use it for a short period of time to test out some of these things and see how big the impact is. That way, when you make a decision, you're making a more informed one, right? If you decide, hey, I'm out of Bruins game, they're gonna lose to the Aves anyway, but I'm gonna drink five beers before I go home. That's I really want to sacrifice that sleep quality. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_00 59:12

Yeah. Yeah, yeah. That was that was that was a nice little jab there, buddy. Well, thank you so much, Luke. It's been incredible. Go follow at modern.tech on Instagram or and follow built human. You can listen to us anywhere. Thanks for listening. We'll catch you next time.