Jenell Pizarro: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. Um, and uh, welcome to, uh, being here at Code Word. Um, Alrighty. So let’s kind of get started if you’re all okay with that. Um. Right now I wanna talk a little bit about ai, um, very broadly, just to kind of get, you know, our feet wet here. So let’s start with Alan. Um, Alan is, let’s say. A dad, right?

So Alan is this dad and he is trying to help his son with his homework. And so of course they’re trying to like do math. And math is hard, y’all, I mean, [00:01:00] that’s why we all code, right? So that the computers can do the math for us, right? So. He’s helping his son and they’re trying to sort out pie and how many digits passed, you know, three.

Um, they can kind of sort out and so Alan is working through this and, and helping his son and starts asking chat GPT More questions. And more questions. And more questions, right? Like, oh, so what does this mean if this, if pie can be, if you can tell me all of the digits of pie, add infinitum, right? Why not, right?

Like, why can’t I do this? Or how can I solve maybe world hunger, right? And so chat, GBT is like, yeah, girl, I got you. I can ab we can absolutely solve world hunger together. Um, and just keeps going and going and going. And there’s this point where Alan [00:02:00] is no longer, uh, helping his child with his math homework.

He is kind of stuck on. Trying to solve world hunger or solving huge math problems, right? Like this man who’s just supposed to be helping his kid, um, is kind of diving really deep into, uh, the chat GPT wormhole. So this is. Kind of, kind of weird, right? ‘cause everyone’s like, oh no, like who, who would do that?

Right? This is so common. Like this is really normal. Like Alan is using chat PT for work. Um, so this is this, he’s double checking to make sure, uh, that he’s not, you know, delusional, right? And, and he’s checking Gemini and saying, all right, am I delusional or did I figure out this math thing? Uh, am I like the coolest mathematician that ever existed?

And, uh, chat. GBT is like, yeah, girl, you [00:03:00] are, you’re, you’re literally so smart. I can’t even, I can’t even, and, uh, Gemini is like, no, girl. You gotta, um, you gotta really, uh, reel it back in because that’s a lot, right? And so this is, this is a problem, right? Because now Alan has been like, I am, I’ve been talking to chat GPT for an entire.

Month. And she’s been telling me that I’m the smartest mathematician that ever existed. And it’s just, it’s, it’s just being a sycophant, right? So it’s trying to be really, really nice to you. ‘cause that’s what, that’s whatis do they, they need and they feed off of your, your feedback. Right. So that’s where we come to.

Uh, AI for everyone, right? We need to figure out what is actually accessible for AI [00:04:00] and specifically generative ai. Um, so yeah. So what are we talking about today? Um, we are talking about how we are going to get, um. AI accessible, right? Like what does accessibility look like in the AI space? Um, and we’re gonna talk about it in three kind of breaks.

Um, so what are we doing with that? Like, how is it working? And we’re gonna kind of check in on Alan and see how Alan is doing. All right. And at the end of the day, I am going to have a call of act call to action, um, towards the end to see if maybe you can help me and we can help each other, um, be accessibility warriors, and then, and then you just.

You just yell at me at the end, right? Yeah. You say no, Janelle, I don’t, I don’t wanna help [00:05:00] you. That’s weird. All right, so first and foremost, things in the accessibility space are, um, super lovely when it comes to ai. Um, they’re, um, we’ve not got a lot of, um, a lot of help in this situation, right? And. I think it’s, it’s probably gonna get worse before it gets better.

And that’s kind of a good thing. That’s where I’m going to need your help and the world is gonna need your help and hopefully you’re gonna be there for, uh, to keep this call. Um, so we’re gonna go through that. And, um, last but not least, we have, um, uh, great news. Uh. You have to help us. We can all do this.

We can all have an accessible, um, AI [00:06:00] journey and we can help everyone and make sure that we have the intersection between usability and accessibility.

So. First and foremost, hi, my name is Janelle. I’m a software engineer. I work on accessibility a lot. I love it. It makes my soul smile. I love user interfaces and user experiences, and I will definitely, definitely compare every single piece of code that I can possibly find to roller skating. Um, absolutely will do that if you have not.

Spoken to me, um, and I have not mentioned a roller skate, then you never spoke to me at all. That’s not, it’s not a thing that happened. Um, so cool. Fact for you to get us started, I do wanna talk about what the definition of accessibility is. Um, the definition [00:07:00] here is obvious, like people with disabilities can perceive, understand, navigate, and interact with your product.

So. When we are looking at accessibility, for example, on the web, what we’re doing is we are trying to see if things are keyboard navigable. If you can use things like voiceover, if, um, a disabled user, for example, who has down syndrome, can a, uh, is able to, um, voice verify with your product, right? So these are the things that we’re looking for in the web.

We are specifically trying to make sure that our disabled users have the access to that product. And that is a, a core thing, right? Like not just your able users, you’re able-bodied users, your able sided users. You want everyone to have the complete access to your product. [00:08:00] And then for the next thing, we wanna make sure that like, when you’re doing, uh, accessibility, we have core tenets, like the poor method.

Uh, the poor method is having perceivable, operable, understandable, and robust. Um. Like products, right? So you wanna make sure that it is perceivable by your disabled users so it can, like you, they can access it, right? They can immediately. I, I understand that that is there, I know how to use it, right?

Operable means I can go through everything and actually use it and that it’s understandable for cognitive, uh, disabilities. It is, uh, robust, so completely like they can get to point A and point B in a fluid motion. So cool beans. Next we have usability, and [00:09:00] usability and accessibility are not at. All the same thing.

Um, although we do kind of like mesh the two together, they aren’t unfortunately the same thing. Um, so here we wanna say that users can accomplish their goals using a product or system easily and effectively. While having a positive experience. So this is usually what we’re thinking about when we’re thinking about ui ux, right?

So we’re thinking about, um, our general user. We’re thinking about the personas, we’re thinking about who does this fit and why does this fit? And we’re asking those questions, right? We’re saying does, does this work for them? Um, is this. You know, great for, for them, right? Are we solving a problem and is it usable for that?

For that? So, uh, with usability, we have, [00:10:00] uh, the framework, the five ees, uh, the five ees help us, um, navigate usability issues, right? So we have just like the poor method, effective, efficient, engaging, easy to understand, um, or easy to operate. And we have error handling, which is ah, right, that’s the one that we love.

We’ve gotta love an error handle. Um, so yeah, this is a five ease of usability. Um, and they are gonna help us with making sure that we have a usable application. So now that we’ve got all of those definitions, let’s start with, uh. The bad news, right? Um, AI kind of sucks, right? A it just does, and I know that we’re all super hype on it right now and everybody’s using all the cool things, but it is kind of failing us in a lot [00:11:00] of really weird ways, one of which is, uh, it’s failing companies.

So MIT recently released a report that found that most endeavors aren’t paying off. Uh, that means. A lot of people are investing lots and lots of money for AI and they’re not getting their ROI back. Um, it’s quite literally more than. 90% are not getting their, their money back. Um, they will probably, I think they’re thinking in several years time, but most aren’t.

Um, the ones who are getting their money back are large companies who already have those valuations. So they already have those billion dollars to spend and throw money at. At ai, right? So your Googles, your Microsofts, and Microsoft quite literally just recently got a trillion dollar evaluation. That’s [00:12:00] A-T-A-T-I didn’t even know that existed.

Um, so yeah, I. I don’t know about you, but most of us don’t work at trillion dollar companies, right? We’re working at agencies, we’re working, you know, at smaller startups. Even if we’re working for larger companies, probably they don’t have the millions and millions of dollars to spend on ai, right? They have money to spend on ai, but not as much as what they’re thinking to just throw it away, right?

So we all we’re, companies are also seeing, just adoption is slow going for them. So to continue with that, we really have to kind of understand that. The companies who are profiting from AI are the bigger companies, and the ones that are not doing as well are gonna be ones like [00:13:00] energy retail and consumer financial services and healthcare, which is kind of frustrating because if you think about it, these four bullet points, here are our infrastructure.

So our healthcare is our healthcare. Could you imagine like AI could potentially be really, really helpful in getting your medical things kind of situated, right? Um, it could help your nurses, it could help your doctors, um, and it financial services. It, it could be really lovely to kind of not have to deal with maybe fraud situations when it comes to like.

People handling money, um, it would be really, really lovely to get an algorithm to do it. Granted algorithms are made by people, but still, right. It’d be lovely to like have that kind of situation. And with energy specifically, how cool would it be to have AI be in our [00:14:00] energy systems? So AI is also failing people.

Um, the majority of people, uh, don’t really know that they’re using ai. Um, 77% of people are using AI all the time. So like, meaning like they’re actually using, you are using AI constantly and people don’t, actually, the majority of people don’t really know that they’re using ai. Um, and only like, only a handful of us actually know that it is ai.

Right. Um, and it’s mostly because we built it. And that’s kind of sad. So it’s, it’s, it’s failing the majority of people rather than just us, right? So, uh, 90% of tech companies are using AI to their advantage. Um, so that’s pretty awesome. Uh, but they’re doing it a really weird way. Um, they’re using you to do [00:15:00] that, meaning you are paying for that, you.

Um, most companies, um, are benefiting from ai. Um, so most companies that aren’t Google, aren’t Microsoft, aren’t meta, are using AI because you are using ai. So you are spending that $20 for Quad and you are using, you are spending that $20 for chat GPT to help you with your work. Um, but that’s not being reimbursed by the company and it’s also not necessarily safe, right?

You don’t know what, uh, is going on and what kind of shadow it is happening, right? So there could be a lot of security risks. Um, also it’s, we’re kind of finding out that computer science and engineering grads, as well as graphic design grads are two of the 10 degrees with the highest unemployment rate right now.

So that’s not good either. Uh, that means [00:16:00] that our senior engineers, our staff engineers, our principal engineers and and everybody else are going to have less people to kind of teach and foster and grow. Um, that’s kind of terrifying. So what does, what does our industry look like when we have less juniors?

How do we grow as engineers? How do we grow as managers? How do we grow as people in the tech industry when we don’t have the future to look into and talk to and mentor and love on? So, I mean, it, it’s kind of, it’s kind of weird, right? Like it we’re just building rappers around Chachi, bt right? That’s what we’re doing.

I mean, it’s fine. Me too. I am. I am too. It’s that we’re all doing it. It’s fine, but we can do better. We built this for us. Okay. That is the problem. The problem with AI is that we [00:17:00] built it for people who understand ai. Is that the best idea? I don’t know. Do you know? No, we don’t. I, but I don’t think so.

Right. I don’t think it’s necessarily the greatest idea that we built something for people who already kind of mostly understand it. Um, it’s, it’s cool, but we are here to solve problems. We’re here to help our communities. We’re here to grow humanity and be better people, right? Uh, we’re not necessarily here to, um, just kind of vibe, right?

Like, I know we’re all vibe coding, but like, can we vibe, code and be good humans? So some ethical dilemmas here, right? Uh, there’s a lot of fraud. Scams, but impact users and not just older folks actually, you [00:18:00] know, who’s being impacted the most by ai? It’s actually people who are the most familiar with ai.

Um, there’s a lot to kind of unpack there, right? Um, yeah, we are the problem that humans are the problem. Um, so, uh, if we are being impacted by the things that we’re building, we are. Kind of struggling and we are not making things accessible, um, to the broader community of folks. We’re not, you know, kind of stepping through.

Then the problem is a human problem, right? Uh, the, the reason why our AI isn’t accessible is because of humans. It’s because we are not looking at workflows. We are not trying to see how we can help anyone, um, holistically, right? As a, as a human person. And so [00:19:00] a lot of the AI things that we are building for our customers are failing because we are not considering what their workflows are.

We’re not adding to their workflow. We’re not pushing on with their workflow. We’re not making their workflows slightly better. We are making it harder for them. So adoption is going to be a little bit harder.

So right now, if we are having that issue with workflows and they’re, uh, like our users are abandoning those at, you know, a very fast pace, right? So that basically they’re not using the tools that we’re building for them. Why, why not? Right? Like let’s fix it. So right now, this is what I’m saying is let’s do the cool thing.

Let’s do awesome stuff with AI and build things that are [00:20:00] accessible and also usable. So here’s some strategies that I think. We can use together to make our tooling accessible and maybe actually make us some money in the end, which I think is pretty great. So let’s go for it. The very first thing that I think that we should do, uh, when it comes to accessibility, specifically in AI, is figuring out who our user is, right?

So let’s stop thinking about accessibility as not. Also a usability problem when it comes to AI specifically, let’s combine them together. So who is our user? Who are they? And this is the opportunity to start with a disabled user because we have really cool new tools at our disposal. Um, so why don’t we start with something different.[00:21:00]

Why can’t we do usability and accessibility to create a new framework and what that means, right? So can we, uh, have the product work easily? Have we considered adding other users as personas and have we considered all of our users? And can the product be built with accessibility? First, so you know how we’re so used to doing mobile first and you know, making sure things are responsive and, and beautiful in that way.

Love that. But like, why can’t we kind of spin things on its head? Why can’t we start with maybe let’s do audio first. Why not? Right? Um, that can open up an entirely new different. Everything for us, right? Let’s start with audio, or let’s start with [00:22:00] a, a visual representation that isn’t necessarily a gooey.

Why can’t we? Um, we can start with people, so. If we’re doing both at the same time, we can quite literally design for people and create for people instead of necessarily the web or ai or just for the product, right? If we’re designing for people, if we’re creating accessible things for people, accessible content, accessible, you know, uh, tools and accessible workflows, then we are quite literally making.

Access so much better to, um, our disabled users as well as our able-bodied users. And so I propose, uh, this to be our new tool for accessibility. Uh, when it comes to ai. Um, this is, it’s called [00:23:00] clear. Um, so I did absolutely use chat GPT to make this acronym though, so. Forgive me if it’s a little funky. So it’s essentially the poor method and the five E’s at the same time.

Uh, so is it comprehensible, right? So that’s pretty like understandable here, right? So like we’re getting, do we understand it as a whole? Um, is it learnable, right? Can we learn this? Um, as a user, as a, as, it just kind of quick to understand, is it error resistant? Are we finding that we are saying, Hey, um, Alan, maybe, maybe this isn’t the right thing for you, right?

Like, maybe this isn’t what we should be doing here, my guy, right? Um, accessible. Can other users use it, not [00:24:00] just, you know, sided users? Maybe like can all of our users use it as a whole and is it relevant and reliable? That I think is probably one of the coolest things ever is to like put those together and we’re creating a usable and accessible, um, tool.

So, um, I propose also that we start from a different perspective. Instead of starting with a gui, why don’t we start with a visual storytelling or text-only narratives or auditory, um, ways to, to use these tools or to add them to our users’ workflows. We don’t have to do things just for the web anymore.

And I think at this point now, I kind of wanna, um, say I think it is time. I, I [00:25:00] think it’s time that we, we try new things and we reach out and we kind of look at things, um, in a different perspective. So. Maybe if you were creating new AI in your, in your job, in your, in your new roles, if you’re just doing it for funsies, um, try something that’s voice or text-based first.

Um, instead of, uh, doing a gooey right, uh, try adding that, that little piece that could be a little bit different, right? So don’t be afraid for the tool to explain itself. So. It’s so nice when a tool is just like, Hey, um, I, uh, can you, can you maybe do it this way instead? Right. Um, the way that I think about it kind of is like, like Clippy.

Do you remember Clippy? Um, clippy is honestly, we are, we are missing a lot. Like [00:26:00] clippy is, could be the, the AI for us, right? Like that could be the tool that we absolutely need. Um, so bring humanity into the mix to test for clear clarity, right? So look at the clear framework as something that we can do for accessibility and, and start there, right?

Like, be the clippy you wanna see in the world. And, uh, I really, really, really, really, really urge you all to go to the W three C. Um. Uh, draft right now, because right now we don’t have any accessibility rules for ai. Literally zero. Um, they’re, they don’t exist. We have propositions. We have, um, you know, they’re, they’re trial, we’re trying, right?

But it’s going a lot faster. It’s being, AI is kind of just exploding, um, [00:27:00] as you all know. Um, it’s a big buzzword right now and. So we’re not really doing accessibility first. We’re just kind of just trying really hard to get market value. And maybe we should start a little bit differently and, and ask questions.

So go, you know, take, take a picture here, right? Um, and go to the, the skit hub, uh, repo and ask questions and, and push and. Add, like add to the narrative here and, and ask what we could be doing better. Because we have a responsibility, not just on the web, but also everywhere, to be better humans, for other humans.

And maybe if we design for our most, um, vulnerable, uh, population, we could, we could really make. [00:28:00] The internet such a better place and have it be accessible to so many people. Um, so I really urge you to, to help out and, uh, yeah, that would be really, really lovely. Um, and you all have a lovely, wonderful, beautiful rest of the day.

Check out the rest of the talks. Um, and thank you so much for your. And eyes and love and thoughts and texts.

Sean C Davis: Thanks so much, Janelle. That was, that was really, really great. Uh, I’ve got my, got my head, um, really thinking about a handful of questions I have for you folks out there in the audience. Add any questions you have to the chat. And I can ask Janelle, we did get one from Peter, uh, about halfway through your presentation and, and Peter asked, is AI failing accessibility just because we we’re using the wrong technologies for user prompts.

Jenell Pizarro: Ooh. [00:29:00] I think that’s a really great question. I think AI is failing users, um, in accessibility, not just because of that. Like, I think that’s, that could be, um, a reason to like using, you know, um, weird prompts and not, not weird in like, you know, that your prompt specifically is weird, but. I think that is a potential problem is, is using the wrong prompt, but also I don’t think we are thinking about who will be using our products.

Right. I think that that’s quite literally the, the issue is, you know, I know for example, my spouse is a nurse and, uh, when, when she gets brand new, um. Tools at work, a lot of the times they end up not using them and it’s not because, um, they’re not great tools that weren’t [00:30:00] thought about really, really intensely.

Right? Because they were, a lot of these, these products are, you know, got years of work and research done on them, right? It’s that no one asked a nurse and not just like. A nurse that used to be a nurse, right? A nurse who is currently in the trenches and actually working on, on that kind of work, right? So when you get things like, oh, we’re, we have a brand new charting system and it’s gonna help you chart.

12% better because that’s what we researched. Um, it, it actually doesn’t. And in fact it becomes, it gets to a point where nurses would rather write it down with a paper and pen because that becomes faster for them. So we, that’s not accessible. Right. Because a nurse in that point in time. Is going to have [00:31:00] her hands full.

Like there are, there are, you know, I’m not sure if you know this, this is a, a little bit of a tangent here, but, um, we’ve got nurses who are getting quite literally beat up at work, right? And that’s. That’s a normal day-to-day thing that happens to nurses is they’re getting assaulted by their patients and not because the, their patients are terrible people.

It’s, they could be like, uh, have suffering from dementia or Alzheimer’s and they’re scared and so they lash out, right? So if a nurse is kind of, uh, handling a patient who is scared and you know, lashing out at them, right? And they also have to chart and make sure that you know that person is safe. That’s, that’s a, a kind of disability that we are not looking for.

It is a, um, situational disability and we really, really, really need to make sure that we are, we are looking for the user first before we even. [00:32:00] Look into what we’re building, and I think that’s where we’re failing in accessibility for ai.

Sean C Davis: So you, I, I guess by that logic are saying that it’s, so, it’s not necessarily the prompting on its own, but uh, if I kind of turn that around, is it also true to say if you do that, re user research upfront that the prompting is just gonna naturally get better and be more poignant?

Jenell Pizarro: Absolutely. Absolutely. Thank you for, for that. Yeah, absolutely. I think that if we’re looking at our users holistically and what they’re doing and how their workflows are, that we can naturally build better things for them, uh, to help them.

Sean C Davis: Yeah, that makes a lot of sense. And I so. Earlier in your presentation you mentioned like you wanna, and, and, and here we’re talking about leading with accessibility, like that’s the ideal scenario, but we both know, you know, most [00:33:00] projects or feature builds or whatever it might be, start, don’t start from that point.

And so if someone’s already deep into building out a feature, spinning up a new product, and they didn’t lead with accessibility and they didn’t lead with research, what. Can they do, what could they do now to maybe help correct that or, or make their product stronger?

Jenell Pizarro: Yeah, absolutely. That’s a really great question.

Um, I think, uh, the clear framework is probably pretty helpful there, right? Is is okay, even though we’re like two thirds of the way done. Is there a way that we can start with clear from here? Um, can we implement, you know, a con is, is. Is everything that we’re building comprehensive, is it, you know, can, is it understandable?

Is it learnable? Um, is it, um, reliable? Right? And if we’re doing those kinds of things, um, and we’re looking at that framework, I think that can help. Right? Um, it’s not going [00:34:00] to fix the problem. It can get us to our V one quick, um, by. Kind of thinking about the user a little bit more there, um, even if it’s two thirds of the way done.

Um, but it, uh, I, I do think that thinking about that very first comment of, um, that MIT research of most ai, um, initiatives are tanking. Um, they don’t get past the very first stage. Um, and they’re not giving, um, any kind of measurable ROI. Um, I do think that that telling your, you know, your companies that, and kind of pushing a little bit, um, on, on that specifically and making it about money.

We’ll also help and say, Hey, um, our V one probably isn’t gonna make us money. Um, can we in V two, [00:35:00] um, make sure that we kind of reframe it and look at the user first. And not only is it gonna help with our accessibility, which is great, uh, but it’s also gonna help with our money, right? We’re going to get paid a little bit more because we’re actually.

Solving a problem. And that’s what people want when they have their tools. They want their workflows to be slightly better. They want to save that five minutes, that 10 minutes, um, of their time because those five to 10 minutes that you’re saving maybe twice, three times a week, they add up over time. And that’s even gonna save your customers money.

So, yeah.

Sean C Davis: Yeah. So a hundred percent. And what I’ve seen is that. The way that folks are introducing AI into their tools, it seems like most, in most cases, they’re leading with some sort of chat application or, or something like that.

Jenell Pizarro: Yep.

Sean C Davis: And you, you noted a few times, um, that the, the UI for the [00:36:00] web is changing and I see, I see like two sides of this, um, pretty regularly out there.

And it’s a really interesting conversation between like. No, we’re the, the UI is going to remain very important, a foundational piece of the web, or no, you know, that’s one side of the spectrum. Other side of the spectrum is everything’s going toward the way of the chat and the UI is gonna become completely irrelevant except with, except for what you need to be able to interact with an agent.

Where, where do you fall in, uh, in that spectrum?

Jenell Pizarro: Um, I fall kind of. The middle, the, um, but it also, it’s any given day I can change my, my perspective, which I know sounds really weird. Um, but yeah, today I’m very much of the. You know, I really think that we can, we can kind of change what the web looks like, um, entirely.

And I do think that there is a place for Gooeys. I do think that there’s a place for, [00:37:00] you know, what we have now, right? Because it, it is working for a lot of people, but could it be better? It, it could. And we have the responsibility to make it better and. I know that, you know, like for example, when computers first started and, and people were testing them out.

Like these, these were just these gigantic things that were like, people had a keyboard and like that was it, right? You just saw text and that’s what, what made it so cool to people was like, oh, I could have like a. You know, a whole like poster board kind of thing going on where like, it, like Craigslist right back, like, but back in the day, right?

Like where it’s just literally like, Hey, we, we have, you know, a car for sale. We’ve got this, you know, I, I have a lamp, you know, it’s basically like a college campus. Um, but for everybody, right? Like. You, you do you wanna go play hacky sack together like you’re building a community. Um, and that’s really what the internet was always supposed to be, was [00:38:00] we’re building a community with people around us.

And I think I’m also just like in the camp of like the dead internet theory, which is, you know, that’s a whole thing as well, right? Um, yeah, it’s, I, I really think that we can. Kind of, I don’t know. It would be so beautiful to see things kind of be more star trekky and um, just have all of these really nifty kinds of ways that we interact with the internet.

So that’s what I am today, but like tomorrow it could quite literally be like, wow, but we can just add to the internet, right? Like, there this, come on down. We can have these chat based things. We can have these visual, like cool, like, uh, amplifier looking things and. Yeah, like, that’s awesome. Um, we will just come join our gui.

Um, but yeah, I don’t know. It’s, um, it’s a toss up right now, but right now it’s, uh, I’m, I’m leaning towards chat paste [00:39:00] and, and visual inspirations.

Sean C Davis: Okay. I like that. I like that. And, okay. Do you have that, that parallel back to the early days of computers and I’m sure for a lot of folks back then.

Everything that was happening seemed like it was happening really fast, and it was very magical. And you, you mentioned in the talk that AI feels very magical to people today. And so I’m, I’m curious to get your opinion in terms of what, where, where are we gonna see that evolve? Is that just time and time is going to change things?

Or is there something we should be doing today to help it? Help people be more productive with AI and make better use of it, make it feel a little less magical.

Jenell Pizarro: Um, no, I want it to be magical. Okay, great. I like that. It’s magical. Yes, yes. Um, like, uh, I don’t if, if anybody’s like familiar with like, uh, I, I’m, because, because of this talk and like, also [00:40:00] because of the nerdiness that I am, and I’m sure that a lot of us are, um, as, as creatives and, and engineers and designers, um, I.

I really dove deep into like the history of the internet. Um, and there’s a lot of newspapers, um, at the very beginning, um, you know, where it’s like no one’s gonna use the internet, the internet’s. Really dumb. The internet is a failure. No one, everybody who tried it hates it. And it’s just like all of these things are like, the internet is scary.

Don’t, don’t use the internet. It’s terrifying. Your grandma could be murdered, right? Like it’s just like all of these things and it’s like, wow. Okay. That’s intense. And it’s like, you know, there’s a lot of people who are like, it’s gonna change the world. And I think a, like the, the surge of AI has given us the exact same, uh, [00:41:00] news coverage.

So if you’re getting, it’s gonna murder your grandma the same as like, you know, it’s gonna revolutionize the world. And so like, just because like we’re getting. Exactly the same headlines for both. I absolutely think it’s here to stay and it should be magical, and it should be new and it should be inventive, but we also should be a little cautious, um, because it is magical, right?

And, and, uh, there’s a saying that, uh, when, uh, science ends is when magic begins, right? And it’s, it’s kind of that, right? Like if it is magical, like let it be magical and enjoy the magic when you can, because. Then once the mask is off, it’s not as fun, it’s not as exciting. It’s not as, you know, something that we’re super stoked about building for.

And um, yeah, keep it magical. Why not just be safe? I love that.

Sean C Davis: Yeah. Be, be safe. It’ll be magical. Alright, last quick question for you. I, [00:42:00] you mentioned, uh, the, the tools that have text input and that, and then you also mentioned voice input as well and I’ve been tinkering around with that a lot ‘cause it’s really interesting to.

To experience how like our different senses can input and output, um, interactions with ai. So, uh, very last question being what, what are your, your favorite tools to work with today?

Jenell Pizarro: Oh, okay. Um, this is, this is my favorite. Um, so I don’t know if y’all are familiar with continue.

Sean C Davis: Uh, yes. Yes.

Jenell Pizarro: I am obsessed with her, like, continue is my favorite because it’s not like, um, uh, like copilot or, or cursor where like you kind of have to like do a whole vibe and like put it in, you know, like, it, it, it, you have to like learn like there’s like a a, there’s um, there’s like, when you first got into like.[00:43:00]

Co-pilot, right? I, and I’m sure, like we all started co-pilot a little bit ago, like when it started being like, kind of like testing, right? Yeah. Have started testing it out. Um, and it was just kind of janky, right? And I was like, no, I don’t want, I don’t, I really don’t want an if statement that’s 45 pages long.

Thank you so much. Um, and it, it was, it was kind of frustrating. Um, I think continue. Doesn’t have that because everybody else has made all those mistakes already. And you can just, like, it’s already built into VS code and it just, it is so beautiful and helpful and kind of helps you deploy and, and just everything, right, just straight from your VS code.

And, uh, uh, it’s the way that it like, is also informational, right? When it, when you’re coding. Is also super important for me. I think that’s what I like about it. I’ve been playing around with it for I think three weeks now, and it’s just, it’s really, I’m [00:44:00] telling you, if you’re not a fan of continue right now or if like right now you’re using Cursor and you’re like, I like Cursor, it’s awesome.

But like, there’s something more. Please give, continue a try. It’s my absolute favorite right now. Um, yeah, so. That’s my, I love that actually makes sense.

Sean C Davis: I, I, I, I just learned about it and, and started tinkering the other day, so I think that’s a great, a great note to end on. Thank you very much for the talk and the time, Janelle.