Why I Decided to Go on this Journey

LLM technology is a paradigm shifting development in Computer Science. It’s built in decades of incremental progress by some of the craftiest people who have probably ever existed, and the promise of these tools has caused an unprescedented economical shift of nation-state resources.

The pursuit of General Artificial Intelligence (GAI) by multi-national trillion dollar plus corporations means a privileged tiny segment of our Global population is at the reigns when these developments effect everyone on the planet.

Why Bill the Wizard?

I love computers. I laid hands on for the first time at roughly age six, and I have been compelled to explore computers ever since. No one ever told me to learn about computers because I could get a good job. I did everything I could to access computers, the internet, and all the creative applications available on a computer.

I started with OS/2, Windows 3.1, and MS-DOS. Most of what I did was run Doom and start up MS Encarta, but I made art in MS-Paint and printed it out on our inkjet printer, accessed the internet from Windows 95 and AOL, installed my own 56k modem at age 9, built a PC from loose components by age 12, and I taught myself how to run Windows Active Directory, Hyper-V virtualization, Linux System Administration, ProxMox Virtual Environment, and I achieved a Cisco CCNA certification.

Please pardon all the first person sentences. I see things a little differently than most people. At age 8, my teacher told my parents that I would be shaving before I made it to middle school: Bill couldn’t learn anything. I managed to achieved a sub-1.0 GPA in High School before I left home for Job Corps. I had a GED in a few weeks, High School Diploma in a year, and a Associates two years after that.

I went to school to teach Mathematics. Math was always my worst subject, and I was determined to compensate for this fact by learning all the fancy College Math and aiming to engage in a highly social profession. I set myself up for having the greatest struggle I could imagine because I wanted to prove my worth to society. I was misguided.

However, I had my first real computer programming experience during my studies to teach Mathematics: a class in Mathematical Computing. I loved learning about Mathematica and Matlab, and I poured my heart into applying all the I had learned about Math into my programs. Engaging with the computer was very exciting!

After 10 years in Education, I am a System Administrator for a Computer Science Department at a University. My expansive experience and familiarity with computers enabled me to set up practically anything on a computer, and I have managed to pick up the skills one needs to configure machines at scale: everything from Network Services, Domains, Computer Clusters, Hypervisors, Software Development Tools, Web Development, Video Game programming, 3D Modeling and Simulation.

Like I said, I love computers! Being adjacent to the academic exploration of LLM technology, I am a first-hand witness to the massive shift in how people engage with computers. The impact of these huge captital investments in AI mean that the tools they release are tighly controlled and curated to maximize “the right kind” of adoption.

The Mission

Since the first big “.com” bubble, people have been told that a sure way to economic security was to study Computer Science. People understood jobs in Software Development to be plentiful and good-paying. While there’s still good jobs out there, the nature of those jobs has shifted.

A.I. tools are complicated to understand. To get the most out of these resources, you need hands-on experience observing how they work, and you must understand how things change at-scale.

Providing the experience necessary to succeed in this new world is challenging. Furthermore, people who can do these things can probably make much more money in Private industry, so how do you find a bunch of people to figure out how to deliver that experience, for a fraction of the cost?

As a non-traditional learner and true lover of these technologies, it would be an honor to help develop new approaches to A.I. Literacy instruction.