AI and personal growth

summarize in one paragraph: Wow what a nice response. Basically people who have actually read the whole thing like it and people who just hate me on Reddit skewered me. Probably doesn’t hurt that I just got approved for AdSense and maxed out my ads because this is the first time I have been approved and I think I might have overdone it a bit, but it is how I experiment, take things to the extremes to stress test. But apparently I also gave everyone cancer with the page according to Reddit. Guess what. I already have been thinking about how to use technology like AI to improve people’s lives. You see. Let me explain what AI means to me. I lost my job at AT&T Corporate in Irving after a head injury made me unable to work for a while so I lost my job and did not qualify for any compensation because they are really heartless in the end. So I ended up in transitional housing or homeless for 9 years. I spent my time studying AI. I started with the math and science and basically built a 4 year curriculum I adhered religiously to as a base that I set up for my self education. Along the way something horrible happened and I ended up losing absolutely everything I had of value except what I could carry with me except a set of colored pencils my friend Chris gave to me for Christmas. With the colored pencils I just drew all day and a chance meeting with the lead singer of the Black Pumas led to him buying $200 worth of art from me which was enough to buy the technology to rebuild my life, a $50 tracfone and $100 chromebook. It was slow at first, taking surveys on free wifi. Coding and doing web development on a very slow chromebook until I was able to get a contract doing data annotation, one of my skills I taught myself in the AI industry, for $4500 and I was able to live in AirBNBs for a time and drive a rented car for Uber Eats until I had enough of an income history to rent my own apartment again. Then I applied to everywhere within walking distance and got hired doing inventory management for retail. Kept doing my AI work at the same time and saved enough for my own car and a nice MacBook and an emergency fund so I don’t end up homeless again. All because Chris gave me colored pencils. So I am trying to start an art movement. I am well known in the art community in Austin, not recently but I recently have come back. Not as a traditional artist, but rather as what I call an “AI artist” who builds AI in an artful manner with computer code and creative writing, doing what I call vibe coding or document driven development or simply writing computer code only with plain language. So the plan is that I give away two sets of colors pencils, sharpeners and drawing books, one for the recipient and one for them to give to someone else. Then I buy their art from them and sell it to my art friends when they want to see my art. People invite themselves to my place all the time to see this 6’x16’ oil painting I have been working on for 9 years, I started when I got the concussion at AT&T when I could not work or read or even watch TV for a month I was so bored I just painted all day until I ran out of money. It was a chance of fate that I got that concussion and it completely ruined my life for 9 years. AI was what I taught myself to improve my situation and stop being homeless. I like to think that other people can follow in my path. I try to carry colored pencils when I can to give away. Or to buy some street art from hustlers, they probably need the money more than you think. So what if they spend it on drugs, so do the rich, the difference is the rich have the money to pay for legal drugs while the poor have to rely on illegal markets. Some people have hidden wounds that drugs make them functional. You may judge he homeless for acting crazy but so does everyone else, it is just that they are forced to live in public at all times which ends up lowering your inhibitions after a while. Plus the fact that you are invisible means you can do anything you want. I have gotten people jobs though, doing what I do. That is why I made my blog. To document what I do, so that other people can also gain the skills they need to thrive. Now that I have more money than my living expenses, they are rather low as I do not have any dependents other than a cat. That part about success not being entirely luck but also hard work came from devoting years and years to painting and art and never making enough to thrive. I starved a lot. It makes you a different person to not have basic needs met. But if you have never been that person, how would you have sympathy for other people when they also are down on their luck? That is why the Buddha path, to go from having everything to nothing to gaining everything back and more except now the material is not an owner of your life and instead of your possessions owning you, you can live below your means and finally live a life of abundance so that you can give back to others. That is the thing. You could be rich and be a very stingy person because you feel that you need more and are not happy with what you have. Most people feel that way, but it is because they are hungry or do not have basic needs met, not that they are not “self actualized” or enlightened. Or you could live poor, live below your means because you are no longer owned by your possessions and have abundance you can share with others. When one of the world’s richest people got that way simply by selling luxuries you have to think about where the rich put their priorities. They could spend that money on a set of colored pencils to give away I am sure. Like the ones Chris gave me. Chris is dead, but his spirit lives on with my work and his kindness is the impetus behind everything I have achieved since he was murdered. But helping people get jobs at places like Mercor is what I do to help other people get in on the jobs artificial intelligence is creating. I have been working in the field of data annotation since 2007 and have seen geometric growth with the rise of AI as far as opportunities. It was going gangbusters for me until the government shut down. But once it reopens I am sure things will get back to normal right? We can hope. Anyway, I am trying to write computer code which will bring my art movement idea to fruition. To teach people to live a life of abundance, not through helping them make more money, but by helping them change their priorities from simply appearing as society is telling you to be versus doing what will actually benefit people other than myself. But basically it will work with people helping other people with an app that will direct a person through GPS or whatever like with Uber except to those in need. I got an idea. What if we started using Google Maps to help identify corners or places which could use help. Places like notorious street corners like the one I lived directly outside of at the homeless shelter for 8 years. Then we could use the Google Maps API to create an app of our own that will use Google Maps to direct philanthropist to those in need. I could work with Integral Care in Austin, they handle the public mental health in Austin and homeless outreach. Because those are the places where there are people in real pain. That is what drives people to drugs. The pain of being abandoned by everyone you know and being distrusted and not believed by anyone anywhere and you are made fun of constantly and you smell bad all the time. It drastically affects your mental health. Most people in these areas have no access to medical care. Either lack of money or because of warrants. Not to mention the daily violence. Either real violence or just violent voices. Anyway, I don’t know if you are going to read this, but I wanted to explain why it is that I think the way I do, that is in an optimistic way, that AI will improve people’s lives. Because I was able to teach myself how to improve my life and I am no one special, anyone else could do the same thing. They just need that gift of colored pencils to push them out of their depression.

The writer reflects on mixed online reactions to their work, then shares a deeply personal story: after a head injury led to losing their job at AT&T and nearly a decade of homelessness, they dedicated themselves to self-education in AI. A small gift of colored pencils from a friend who was later murdered sparked an artistic journey that eventually connected them with supporters, enabling them to buy basic technology, rebuild their life, secure income through data-annotation work, and ultimately regain housing. Now financially stable, they are working to help others by blending art, AI, and community—giving away art supplies, promoting compassionate views of homelessness, helping people find jobs, and imagining tools like an app to guide would-be helpers to those in need. Their core belief is that technology and generosity can empower people to transform their lives just as they did.