I was just a kid when I fell in love with Star Trek: The Next Generation. Every week, I'd park myself in front of the TV, completely mesmerized by this vision of the future with its cool gadgets, space exploration, and that awesome holodeck. But there's this one episode that stuck with me all these years - "The Measure of a Man." In it, this Starfleet guy wants to basically take apart Commander Data (the android crew member) to figure out how he works. They end up in this tense courtroom scene where everyone's arguing about whether Data is just a fancy piece of equipment the military owns, or if he's actually alive with rights that matter. I remember watching it and feeling genuinely stressed out for Data! Would they really just dismantle him like he was nothing more than a toaster? Fast forward to today, and we're having the exact same conversation about AI. Who's responsible for this thing? We're not fighting for robot rights (at least not yet), but we ARE stuck on some pretty big questions: - When AI messes up and gives biased results, who takes the blame? - If AI creates something cool, who actually owns it? - When stuff goes sideways, who pays the price? In that Star Trek episode, Starfleet almost lost Data because they treated him like property instead of a teammate. Today? Companies are going to lose big time: their reputation, their customers, their best employees, if they treat AI like it's just some disposable tool with no consequences. The winners won't be the ones waiting for the government to tell them how to handle AI responsibly. They'll be the ones who figured it out early. It's not just about cutting costs Remember how Starfleet wanted to rip Data apart so they could mass-produce android workers? That's exactly what I'm seeing today. So many business leaders are thinking: - "Great! Let's automate everything!" - "We can replace half our workforce!" - "Think of all the money we'll save!" That's such short-sighted thinking. It's like trying to win a race by seeing who can make the cheapest product. Spoiler alert: someone can always go cheaper.

Hello fellow AI founders & enthusiasts! Finding this local group has got me fired up! A Bit About Me Born in Los Angeles, proud Filipino, and now soaking up the sun in Scottsdale, AZ. My wife and I spent four straight years living the nomad life in a motorhome and traveling internationally before settling down. We're now first-time parents to our 1-year-old boy named Miko "MacGyver." Yes, that's his real middle name – I was obsessed with MacGyver! We also have a 14-year old Silkie Terrier named Chloe who's still kicking. My wife and I traveled full-time for four years in a motorcoach and saw half of the country, as well as a dozen foreign countries. COVID forced us to settle down in Austin, TX, when certain states started to tighten up their borders. Hit the big 5-0 this year (half a century, folks!). My wife is 13 years younger than me and doubles as my business partner. I've weathered some serious storms – nearly filed for bankruptcy once and dropped out of college just six months shy of completing my Computer Information Systems degree because of boredom. The school moved at a glacial pace, and I was already earning a great living in tech. My Journey I've been in the e-commerce trenches for nearly 30 years (internet dinosaur status confirmed). Built multiple successful brands, survived Amazon's rollercoaster (including a full-blown account suspension right before my wedding... nothing tests your crisis management skills quite like that), and made pretty much every mistake possible along the way. Truth is, I've been knee-deep in automation for decades before it became the hot thing everyone's chasing. My e-commerce operations relied heavily on connecting inventory management systems, order processing workflows, vendor management tools, and CRMs. I've hired coders to create custom apps and scripts to bridge operational gaps that off-the-shelf solutions couldn't handle. One could say I was forced to learn integrations and automations simply to keep my businesses from imploding.