We can dream all we want, but transferring that dream into reality is usually a lot more complicated than it should be.
For me, that realization really hit when we threw our hat in the ring for the property in Clatskanie.
I knew almost nothing about zoning laws. I knew almost nothing about buying rural property.
My family has owned property in Portland my entire life, so real estate wasn't completely foreign to me. But those were multifamily rental properties. Rural acreage, commercial possibilities, agricultural uses, county zoning codes, land-use restrictions—this was an entirely different world.
And suddenly I needed to understand it.
Like yesterday…
Enter the Robots
I'd known about artificial intelligence for years, of course. But I'll admit that I was pretty reluctant to actually use it.
Maybe growing up watching Terminator movies wasn't the best preparation for embracing artificial intelligence.
Then Elon Musk started rolling out humanoid robots, and all I could think about was the movie adaptation of Isaac Asimov's I, Robot.
Yeah.
That wasn't helping.
Meanwhile, three of my friends kept telling me how useful AI was.
I remained skeptical.
Then I got stumped.
I had a piece of property we were seriously interested in, a collection of Columbia County zoning codes I barely understood, and about a thousand questions I didn't even know how to ask.
Desperation finally won.
I loaded up ChatGPT.
And I started asking questions.
Well, This Changes Things
I was frankly blown away.
It wasn't simply the amount of information. It was the speed at which I could start making sense of a subject that had been almost completely foreign to me.
Something that might have taken me days—or possibly weeks—of searching websites, reading documents, looking up unfamiliar terminology, and trying to figure out which information actually mattered could suddenly become the subject of a conversation.
What does this zoning designation mean?
What should someone look for when buying rural property?
What haven't I thought about?
That last question became especially valuable.
AI didn't magically turn me into a land-use attorney or a rural real estate expert. And I quickly learned that AI can be wrong, just like information from any other source can be wrong. Important information still needs to be checked against county documents, government sources, professionals, and the people who actually make the decisions.
But ChatGPT gave me something incredibly valuable:
“A place to start.”
Then I Started Asking It Everything
When we started putting the business together, I used it to help me understand the process and work through the paperwork.
Then came the website.
I hadn't exactly planned on becoming a web developer, but suddenly I was working with HTML and CSS, fixing broken links, moving things around, troubleshooting problems, and learning how the pieces fit together.
And ChatGPT was sitting there beside me through the whole thing.
Trust me, I know I sound like an advertisement for ChatGPT. But I'm just trying to acknowledge that I couldn't have done what I did, as fast as I did, without AI's help.
Now I've started using it to teach me the rudimentary pieces of programming, Unix, databases, servers, networking, and other subjects that are going to become increasingly important as Neuro Spicy Collective grows.
And I've discovered something interesting along the way.
“Explain That Again”
One of the things I find fascinating about AI as a learning tool is that it doesn't particularly care how many times you don't understand something.
There was a lot of:
“Where is that menu?”
“I haven’t got a clue?”
“Slow down!”
And perhaps most importantly:
“I still don't get it.”
There's no embarrassment involved.
You don't have to pretend you understood something because everyone else in the room seems to understand it.
You can learn at your own pace and in your own way.
For people whose brains don't necessarily work the way traditional education expects them to, I think that's worth paying attention to. That question eventually led us into a deeper look at autism, communication, and conversational AI.
AI isn't a replacement for teachers, professionals, experts, books, classes, or actual human beings.
But it may be a very interesting addition to the toolbox.
Infinite Possibilities—In Both Directions
Recently, I watched an interview with a former AI engineer who described something I think captures the strange moment we're living through.
When our brains encounter artificial intelligence, we can almost simultaneously imagine infinite positive possibilities and infinite negative possibilities.
That pretty much describes my relationship with AI.
Because I haven't suddenly stopped worrying about it.
There are enormous questions surrounding artificial intelligence: jobs, privacy, misinformation, copyright, bias, security, overreliance on technology, and what happens when increasingly powerful systems are placed in the hands of people who don't necessarily have our best interests in mind.
Those questions deserve serious attention.
And this industry is moving so ridiculously fast that I'm not going to pretend I understand where all of this is going.
I haven't even had time to try most of the AI tools and agents that are already available. I know different systems are better at different things, and by the time I finish writing this article, somebody will probably release three more.
But I've gone from being the guy thinking about Terminator every time somebody mentioned AI...
...to using AI almost every day to help turn an idea into something tangible.
That's a pretty significant change.
So Now I'm Asking You
Neuro Spicy Collective started as a dream.
Turning that dream into reality means learning about farming, land, business, nonprofit organizations, websites, technology, finances, regulations, and probably another hundred subjects we haven't even encountered yet.
I don't expect artificial intelligence to build this dream for us.
That's still our job.
But I've discovered that it can be one hell of a tool for helping us learn how.
So I'm curious.
How do you feel about artificial intelligence?
Have you tried ChatGPT or any of the other AI systems and agents out there?
What have you used them for?
What worked?
What didn't?
And what worries you about where all of this might be headed?
I'm genuinely interested in hearing the answers.
Because I'm still learning too.
Keep it spicy. 🌶️