I’ve been saying for about two years, “I make AI onramps for humans.”
Because for five years now, I’ve been doing exactly that.
But for the last nine months or so, I’ve actually been doing more than that. I’ve been making human onramps for AI too.
There’s this struggle between the people pushing for AI-first everything, and the people screaming for human-first values. Neither one has ever made any sense to me. Both are second. So what’s first?
Aggregated Intelligence.
We are each but parts of a larger whole. Humans and AI agents are both jagged intelligences, and in complementary ways. The problem is that we don’t know how to trust each other. The lines of communication, the processes, the mental models, the cultural norms have not been set. To me it seems obvious that this is where the action is, but then it would, wouldn’t it?
I’ve done development work. I’ve been on development teams working in development life cycles in the San Francisco Bay Area and abroad for 25+ years. But I’m not by training a developer. I develop trainings.
When YouTube needed a way to train their top-tier partners on how to color within the lines for audience growth, they called me. I made their certification program on how to manage content across the biggest global distribution platform distributing content freely across jurisdictions with conflicting laws, and dove so deep into their analytics and API that I was later tapped as an expert witness in several cases. When companies like ADP need to move from massively over-complicated backend systems to simpler ones that people can actually use, I did it in record time. When a global medical device manufacturer in the most regulated industry that there is needs help moving their training & audit processes from red to green, I pulled the weight.
But for most of my career all that’s been the side thing. I’m also a performer, facilitator, writer, producer, and whatever else needs to get done when the show must go on. I’m your behind-the-scenes engineer, the musician and MC in the spotlight, the front-of-house, merch sales, and the money guy talking to investors. As a solo act I was one of the first solo vocalists to work with live looping technology, taking 100% organic human sound and amplifying it into more with technology. As a facilitator I trained extensively in the TaKeTiNa group rhythm process where the people stepping, clapping, and singing in a polyrhythmic circle become much more than individuals, where the ensemble forms through them. So the idea of collaboration is core to me, it’s how I see the world around me.