Eric Mulvin: 00:00
Welcome to the Unfinished Business Podcast. I’m your host, Eric Mulvin, and this is a show where we sit down with CEOs, visionaries, leaders, and creators who are out changing the world through business, through their organization, through leadership, or through their creativity. Because it doesn’t matter who you are or what you have accomplished. Even someone like Sir Patrick Stewart still definitely had some unfinished business. He was acting until the very end there and making public appearances. And so we explore those stories here on Unfinished Business with Eric Mulvin. At Pac Biz Outsourcing, we help software, e-commerce, taxi, and NEMT companies help outsource their customer support and back office work with dedicated team in the Philippines. These are full-time remote staff who work as part of your team, handling calls, emails, chat support, admin tasks, so you could improve support, scale faster, and keep costs under control. For example, one client is saving over $600,000 a year in dispatching costs by switching their dispatch to Pac Biz Teams. So if you’re looking to lower costs or scale support, please visit pac-biz.com to learn more or give us a call Monday through Friday at 480-771-3009. Alright, today I’m excited to introduce you guys to our next guest. He has founded and hosts The Weird Canadian, a twice-weekly YouTube podcast. Each episode, he talks with someone building what comes next with AI and what it changes for your work or business. And what should you build next? Very important questions. He has spent a decade as a software engineer in government and Fintech, working his way up to senior developer at Ontario’s Ministry of Transportation before moving to FIS Global. These days, he’s a consulting software engineer for Agentic AI Systems, based in Lewisport, Newfoundland. And you can find him at the underscore weird underscore Canadian. Please help me welcome, ladies and gentlemen, Cody Johnston. Welcome to the show.

Cody Johnston: 02:25
Thank you for having me. And I uh I apologize for all those people out there that have to put in the underscores because uh the weird Canadian by default was taken.

Eric Mulvin: 02:34
So who has more followers?

Cody Johnston: 02:38
I definitely do. I uh I grew my audience over the past uh year and a half, so it’s it’s been a long trek, but I’m sitting about 30,000 across all my socials.

Eric Mulvin: 02:47
Nice. Congrats. Cool. Well, appreciate you being on. Uh we connected, I was actually a guest on his show, and we got to talk a lot about AI and uh what what my expertise is in. I’m excited to flip the mic around and uh and hear from Cody as uh he talks to people twice a week, probably more, but he’s putting out episodes twice a week on uh on AI. And with it changing so rapidly, I think there’s and I know there’s probably a half dozen things that’s happened since you and I talked a couple weeks ago.

Cody Johnston: 03:19
So yes, uh the uh the the talk we had a couple weeks ago, the AI coding agent was just getting to the point where it was on par with how I code. Um and now I’m leveraging that to the help because I’m like, well, I’m not I’m not good enough anymore. It is I am no longer worthy of coding the the services anymore.

Eric Mulvin: 03:38
Um Well, you’re you’re in good company because I could tell you uh as we were talking before we hit record here, uh I just came back from uh a conference uh this transport, which is interesting. You know, I’m have to ask more about your transportation uh experience. But uh transportation conference out in uh uh Southern California, and uh got to interview a couple um software CEOs out there talking about AI and uh heard some interesting stuff. Uh this I’ve heard a couple people say this. Like around March of this year, at least one of the companies that’s been around 15 years, they no longer write code.

Cody Johnston: 04:15
It’s now becoming not efficient. Um like I can put out ten times as much code in the span uh of me writing a single like page of code. Um it’s ridiculous.

Eric Mulvin: 04:28
Man, so lots to talk about here. Really excited. So uh to start, give uh a little background, and I know I gave you uh in the intro there, but I guess uh what are you working on these days? What are you up to?

Cody Johnston: 04:40
Yeah, so I’m a former GovTech slash Fintech uh senior engineer. Uh I’m currently working on my own consultancy firm that’s building out a Fintech uh product for the United States. I can’t give any more information than that because I’ve signed an NDA. Um, however, I am also running a podcast where I talk with industry leaders about what they’re building in the space of AI, as well as I’m like deeply connected into the AI space. So everything I see on a daily basis, I’m trying to leverage into my own workflows, trying to figure out how it works, why it’s working, um, the capabilities, and just trying to keep up. I this is the one one uh thing everybody in the space is saying is like we feel behind. And and every single person, regardless of where you’re at in the industry, you feel behind.

Eric Mulvin: 05:28
Um yeah, there’s this like kind of anxiety. I feel it as a CEO, and I coming back from that conference, I talked to a lot of the other vendors uh that are trying to leave this industry, and they’re feeling it too. We’re all there’s a there’s interesting vibes happening right now in the world. Uh I guess without uh any other good word to to describe it, but um so with uh with everything that you’re doing, I’m curious. Like you said you’re spending a lot of time trying to keep up. How much time do you spend a week just trying to keep up with the new stuff?

Cody Johnston: 06:04
Uh I’m probably like 10 hours a day um just going through what’s what’s came out today, um, and then trying it out on my own side. Because the the other side to it is uh my computer isn’t the greatest. I’m still trying to build up uh some money so I can buy some some local hardware. Um, however, it you have to go through it all. Like it’s not just you go and listen to what everybody says, you have to then go and try the products, you gotta go and and see how it works. Um, literally every hour I’m getting an update to my harness. Um so for people that don’t know what a harness is, it’s basically just a controller for my models. Um so instead of going to Chat GPT or Claude or Gemini, I am actually harnessing them on my local computer because I think it’s important for data control. Um, however, I can leverage all three models at once. I can have them go do different tasks at different times. Um, so it’s all just trying to update what I’m working with and playing around. Like this is the one one thing I want to tell everybody is like play with it. Figure out like the fun things you can do with it because it it’ll surprise you.

Eric Mulvin: 07:15
That’s what I love about it. There’s so many fun surprises because it you must have like because I I got this crazy level of curiosity, and I think that’s part of the uh part of what you need to be really successful with AI. Because if you’re like, uh for example, I mean that chat GPT has been around now a couple years, and I I’ve really been these last couple months breaking out of some of the old habits, like for example, and I think some people listening, you know, business owners watching might relate to this, you know, I learned how to build custom GPTs and I just kind of let that set. And now I’m like, oh, those are expiring. I’m gonna have to update some of those, but now there’s all these other things I could do, and that’s way more advanced. And so, and and that’s this one little thing. Um, but yeah, um, playing around with everything and figuring it out, like it that is a fun part. And I I’m hoping we could uh through this uh interview today help the listeners hear maybe some of the some different things that you could be thinking about on where to explore with AI. Because yeah, this is the obvious stuff. There’s uh upload your transcript, you know, make this document, make this graphic, but there’s infinite solutions, infinite ideas, and I really see that again, coming back from the conference, talking with the software people, and I tell them some of the things we’re doing in our center because our approach uh at my uh call center is AI plus HI, which I talked about, I think, on your show too. Artificial intelligence, human intelligence, so bringing the human aspect in. So people are a little surprised when they’re like, you’re not trying to replace your agents. No, but we’re building AI tools around them to make them better, to make them perform better. And that approach comes up with new ideas that maybe if you weren’t looking at that angle, you would never consider. And so everybody’s coming up and inventing new things left and right. So, what are some of the cool things that you’ve seen people invent with AI just on their own that before AI would have never been able to do?

Cody Johnston: 09:19
Uh so at the moment, like I just uh I just watched a podcast now that I’m thinking about it, uh, there’s a product called Ava. And essentially what it’s tasked to do is to help lawyers help like do all their their grunt work, the the ability to like go through paperwork and and and build out case logs and things like that, because there’s just not enough lawyers to be able to handle all of the casework. And that’s why, like and a lot of it isn’t even data like um put on to computers. Like a lot of it is just emails talking to people, uh, a lot of it is uh still on paper, and they’re like, We’re we’re getting new data sets in this whole realm because we’ve never had it before. We’re empowering lawyers to take on more clients because it means they don’t have to do all of the the work in order to build out a case. They can just go to the trial, understand what’s going on, and serve their client the way they should be, as opposed to going through all the processes of like hours worth of writing out um casework and and uh looking up uh laws and things like that. I I I found that to be quite interesting. Um personally, I just got access to Suno’s uh uh MCP server. So if people don’t know what that is, um it’s a connection directly to the service, so you don’t have to go through the interface for it. Um and I I make my own music. So now I can ru I can plug that into my harness to leverage a flow where I can create my music right from my PC as opposed to going out to their service and trying like adding in what I need to do. Um on top of that, I also just integrated my 3D printing flow. Um over here I’ve uh it’s blurred out, but I’ve got like a table full of 3D prints. Um, and we’ve now integrated custom printing. So people are bringing us pictures of their dogs, and uh I’m having my AIs go out, make a 3D model of the dog, and then going and serving it up right to the printer.

Eric Mulvin: 11:19
Wow. All in the little office space behind you there. Yeah, yeah, that’s amazing. And that’s the kind of stuff you would like teams of people, back and forth collaboration, maybe a few prototypes that don’t work out, and you gotta go back and like you’re you’re cutting out so much stuff, and uh so that’s that’s awesome. Um for the people listening, because I I know I’ve been getting into the NPC stuff lately, um, that it’s really getting out there more and more. And I’m seeing a lot of software is like putting that out because I think they realize if they don’t, they’re gonna be obsolete because people are gonna look for another solution that has it. Uh, explain to the people what is that and why should they look into it more if they’re a business owner and not using it yet.

Cody Johnston: 12:04
Uh so the MCPs are just more like a direct connection to the service itself. So instead of going to the interface, like so the way a normal website works is you have like a back end where all of your data is stored and it gets served up to the front end through like uh JSON information, like uh I can’t think of the word of it, text. It’s just basically pure text that goes to the front end and then the front end then translates that into your pictures, uh, how it flows in your website, your paths. Um, an MPC per server is just kind of like a custom server that uh AIs can integrate into that kind of bypasses that. It gives a little bit more flexibility to um the AI because it’s dealing directly with the data. Um there’s so I don’t know if it’s a good idea to build out an MCC RP connection right now, um, purely because it’s essentially just your API exposed. Um it’s essentially just the backend connection requests that allow you to be able to manipulate that data. If the agents can just read how the data is supposed to be uh formatted and what values you’re allowed, um it’s essentially the same thing. Um but companies are building out these custom uh MCP server or MCP links so that they’re they’re a little bit more protected, I think. Um but I think with time that’s just gonna change into security protocols. Um but for the most part, it’s just yeah, it’s just your back end serving directly to the agent. This is something that’s uh coming around in the dev space is you don’t really need front-end interfaces for agents at all. Um they don’t care what your your web page looks like, they don’t care that they have to click through 20 boxes to get to the end result to get that that item in your checkout cart or anything like that. They just need the direct access to understand how your data flows so that they can make the request on behalf of the user. Um so like I think we’re going into a world where we’re not gonna have screens.

Eric Mulvin: 14:12
Yeah, that is crazy. For so common for me, I used to code HTML back in the day, so it’s just a can’t I can’t picture that. But I could I see that being a possibility, especially with where things are going with AI. You know, I don’t think it’s very efficient for the AI to navigate the web browser and click through like a human when yeah, you could just jump in and do some of that. So but yeah, thanks for sharing that.

Cody Johnston: 14:38
Those also take up tokens. So as it has to click through a website right now, it takes more tokens to do that than going directly to a thing. So also take that into consideration when when you’re thinking about it, because like that’s a lot of token usage.

Eric Mulvin: 14:50
Yeah, for a basic, I did that recently where I burned through all my work usage because I just had it trying to look up something on a website, and after like two minutes, it was like, oh, sorry, you’re out of your work usage. Like, what? So yeah, it really very inefficient. So uh, but but yeah, so what does that mean for a business owner then? If you know, like for decades, they’ve been hearing you had to have a website, you gotta have online presence, you gotta do this and this and this. Now you’re sitting here saying, yeah, we probably won’t even have screens anymore in the future. What does that mean for a business owner?

Cody Johnston: 15:28
It it means you have to start looking at um figuring out what you’re you’re you’re good at. Um you need to present yourself like so you still need a web presence. Like as as much as people don’t think so, it’s more important now than ever to have data on the internet about you, about your business, why you’re doing things. Um, like I’m hearing, especially in the content creator space and and and the entrepreneur spaces, you need to be like an influencer now more than ever, because you need to serve up as much data about who you are and what you do so that the agents have enough context to be able to serve you to the clients you’re looking for. Um not to say that like you need to go out and and go on podcasts, although I think that’s a great way of uh ensuring that you get a lot of data out about yourself, but it it’s also like putting out more information about what your company does, um, actually giving real world stories, why help things. Um testimonials are gonna be a big factor in this. Um AI does not uh care about your advertisement. AI does not care about like you um you worked with a company, so they have your your company logo on a on a website that they have as well. Um they just care about your clients, what they’ve said about your things, they’re gonna be able to look up your reviews, they’re gonna be able to look up everything about your company and then determine whether the user actually benefits from that. Um we uh when when businesses are looking towards uh the future, they need to start positioning themselves in how best they can help as many people as possible. Um and it’s it it’s literally just coming down to like humanity. If you are a good business owner, you’re trying your best, you’re you’re serving your your your clientele, like you’re you’re giving all um more customer service, you’re being more generous, you’re you’re trying to be better, you’re you’re gonna make it far.

Eric Mulvin: 17:29
Yeah, I I uh I definitely see the future where businesses who aren’t focused on that, because traditionally, you’ve been able to get away with it. And in fact, the bigger you get, the more you can get away with it, right? It’s ridiculous. I don’t know how that works, but that’s just you know, the there’s some there should be a theory we could name after myself or something. But that’s that unfortunately is how it is. But I there’s a lot of things I’m seeing where it’s like, you know, we have access to, we’ve had access to information, but now it’s just it is just so right there and so and so easy to to communicate with, capture, tailor it to every individual. So I just find it hard for businesses like that to survive when I could just go and find 20 other options. Or if it’s software, my god, I’d I’ll just go. If I’m getting ripped off by my software company and I’m not getting the value I’m looking for, I’m gonna go talk to my developers and be like, what do you what do you think the likelihood of us building our own version of this is? That’s a conversation that’s happening almost on a weekly basis now, where we’re like, oh, we can go out and buy it or we can build it ourselves.

Cody Johnston: 18:40
The the downside to that is you really have to understand that uh what software gives you as well. So like it’s all fine and dandy to go and build it yourself, but then you have to upkeep it. You have to ensure that it’s uh secure. There’s a whole bunch of other aspects to it. So, unless it’s like eating at your bottom line to the point where like it’s not it’s not worth it. Um, the only reason uh this is another conversation that I’ve had not too recently, but it was about uh uh data siloing. And it’s like if a service isn’t willing to give uh me more information about why it’s collecting things and how it’s doing things, it’s not worth it in my company because that data is more important to me than the application itself. So, like it your trade-off is I can build it and I have a better data data understanding of what’s going on, or I can rely on somebody that I trust. It’s being more transparent. Software needs to be more transparent with the people who are using it. And this is the other uh uh unpopular opinion that I have. I don’t think software is ever going away. I don’t think people are just gonna start building their own versions of things because there’s still a level of trust and there’s still a level of technical requirements. There’s still a being of like, is it secure? Can I release this? Like, you still need to worry about like data being out there in certain regards. Um, so I think there will be software. I just think it’ll be a lot cheaper than it is today.

Eric Mulvin: 20:11
Yeah. Well, it’s interesting. You know, we talked about like what has changed in the last couple of weeks since we last spoke. And I think the biggest thing that we saw the rise and fall, it was like a blip. You know, we’ll look at and um, but for a little while there, people thought, oh, we could just replace like Adobe Creative Suite with some vibe-coded solutions, which is like I’ve been using Adobe since it was like Adobe 6.0. I had to manually like take tape, cassette tapes, and up like play it back in real time for the computer to capture it. There was no digital date like tapes back then. So um, so I it it is interesting because you I’m I’m seeing this too. Like at the conference I was at, you we had uh one of the guests I had on the show, four and a half-year-old software company, CEOs from MIT, um, interesting perspective on where they’re at. And then you have the other company that’s been around 15 years. The the CEO, he was uh he was he programmed games. There’s like a really famous game out in the the UK, uh a rally game that he he made, uh uh Arrow from TaxiCaller. I’ll give him a shout out. Um and and then you see their perspective too, which they’re treat, they’re they’re coming at a different perspective because I think you know when you’ve wrote code for so long, I I think it’s a little different than like the ones, like the startups who are like send everything to AI. And that’s not what these guys have been around since before Chat GPT, but I I think maybe coming from MIT, they’re they’re pushing it a bit further and faster than maybe some of the other people out there. So are you seeing the same thing? Like this kind of divide between, and maybe it’s just age or maybe it’s background experience, but this divide between how people are approaching it.

Cody Johnston: 21:58
Yeah, the there’s Still the the idea of the old guard, and as much as like these products are great and they they work really well, they’ve been hashed out, the other caveat to it is they have a monopoly. Like they they are the ones that like most people can’t like you brought up Adobe. Most people can’t afford the subscription for enterprise to be able to bring it into their company as as a starting starting out, right? Like they need the tools like I used to use GIMP um because it was a free open source thing, but that’s a high learning curve. Like you have to relearn everything you do in Adobe in that software. Um I think what you’re gonna see in the future is a lot of small companies with small teams building up like similar apps, um, similar applications to be able to just compete. And that’ll actually help out the the economy more because it’ll bring down the cost of the the legendary, like the um I can’t even think of the legacy.

Eric Mulvin: 22:58
Legacy software. Yeah.

Cody Johnston: 22:59
Yeah. It’ll it because it’s starting to become a competition, uh, right? Like we’re going back to the first principles of of of the free market economy is the more competition, the better it is for the customer. You’re gonna have cheaper prices, you’re gonna have better software because there’s more of a need to service um and try and take market share. Um so right now, yes, these these apps are kind of crappy and they don’t work as well as they can. Um, but I think you’ll also see a surge in really good uh niche applications that were like thousands of dollars for everybody else before. Um and now you’re you’re gonna have to compete. Uh I think it’s I think it actually will work out in the customer’s favor because I think for a long time we’ve been too much of um this is just how it’s always been. I’m gonna have to fork out more money every year because the price of the same product is going up because the shareholders need a uh a little bit more money in their pocket. Um and then the quality also goes down because you’re hiring more people to fix the the bugs and make things make more things and people don’t understand the code as much. Um I actually just had a conversation with a indie game studio uh the other day, and they stated that like we have a five-person team and we are out competing AAA studios uh when it comes to game development because we have more agency, we’re able to tackle games faster, we’re able to connect with the um with the community enough that we can build out a whole new feature in a weekend. And that’s just because you understand the product, you understand the client, and you understand the code. Right? Like that that gets as a company gets bigger, you get you lose the people who actually understand what’s built. Um, and now with AI, you’re starting to see a lot more smaller teams take agency and be able to like understand every aspect of it.

Eric Mulvin: 24:56
So you’re no collision.

unknown: 24:57
Yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 24:58
That that is fascinating. And I I mean, it was just yesterday I was looking at a software I use for just managing my passwords. And I was looking at the billing for it, and I was like, man, this thing, it was costing me like $60 a year. Now it’s $150 a year. Like, I wish I could increase my prices by three times. Um, but the cost of software, like as a line item on my uh my monthly PLs, has just ballooned over the last couple years, and it’s just gotten to the point where yeah, I need this data. Like, you because we all know how important it is, and it’s hard to make decisions without that data, but man, the cost to capture that data is is gone up so significantly that it’s impacting business. And you know, like so this is it is gonna be an interesting time with uh you know the all the competition.

Cody Johnston: 25:51
I just thought of something, so I just came across something on X not too long ago, and uh Cisco, the routing company, um, basically said that they hired an engineer um to rewrite all of Cisco’s code. Uh so like they’re like, we’ll give you a one engineer, a engineer? A single engineer. Uh this company has been around for about 30 years. Uh they are the backbone of most of uh enterprise infrastructure on on networking. Uh and yes, they brought in an engineer and they said, We’ll give you unlimited tokens to vibe code out the next like iteration of the code. Um they said the the engineer was smart and he’s like, Well, like, can I have somebody else? Like, can we bring in another engineer? Because he’s like, I don’t know if I can do it all myself. Um, but that’s that’s literally getting to the point where people like people are gonna be hiring their own engineers to run the company. Like, does it really make sense to to pay a hundred grand a year for software that you need that you need in your company? Or does it make sense to pay uh uh an engineer a hundred grand a year to go and build the applications you need to run? Um and this is where I’m like, I don’t think engineers are going or software engineers are going anywhere anytime soon. Because as AI gets better, you still need people like technical enough to understand how to collect the the business requirements, to understand the needs of the business, and to be able to translate that into software, even with AI. Like you can speak through it, but do you know all aspects of like what you’re looking for, how to make it latent, uh, how to bring down latency, how to scale, what infrastructure you need, what security you need. Like it’s really becoming to the point where like small companies are just gonna be hiring one-off engineers like myself, consultancy, weird Canadian, uh, to come in and build custom software for them and just be like there to service them as individuals.

Eric Mulvin: 27:43
I had a thought pop into my head, like because in the business, you know, you got the CEO, you got the C-suite, you know, for companies, maybe not the big, not the five-person company is not gonna have a C-suite, but I could see like you well, you still have these uh positions, like you have your accountant, even if you’re a small company, you got your accountant, bookkeeper, different, different things. You might have a lawyer that you hit up every once in a while when you need your contract updated. Well, everyone is gonna need that engineer, they’re gonna need that that person that can also communicate. Just like very few of us can go into our finances and prepare the documents needed to file our taxes, like that’s a whole other language. And good luck trying to communicate with that CPA. Like, you know, you have to speak another language to talk to them and get what you want. I think it’s gonna be the same thing because it’s it is a whole other language. And uh, so for businesses out there that don’t have that, start looking for that resource. Because I mean, maybe in the past it was like your your nephew that could code websites for you, and that’s how maybe people did that, and you know, to get into the the web space, um, you’re gonna need that person. Maybe the same thing again, your your nephew in in college that’s been doing all the you know vibe coding here for a couple of years and is making little programs on their own, it’s gonna be the same uh repeat uh pattern again.

Cody Johnston: 29:07
Yeah, and then it it’ll go it goes through cycles, you’ll end up with concentration in markets as as the software gets there and as AI grows, um, there’ll be quicker, easier ways of doing things to cut out people because there always is. Um, but the other side to it is like humans are adaptable. Like as the job changes, uh like I change with it. Like I used, like I said, uh I’ve been writing code since I was 16 years old. Um and even through my own progression, um, I got less into code and more into understanding how the application works so that I can code better for the client. Um, and now it’s like, okay, how do I manage the AI to build something that I need for my client? So it’s just changing in how things work. Um, I think having an open mind is the best thing anybody can have right now.

Eric Mulvin: 29:56
Yeah, agree. Going back to that creativity thing. You know, if you’re if you’re not thinking about all the possibilities, you’re like, this is the only thing, you’re missing out on possibly a better way to do things. So um now you talked about getting into uh coding there when you were 16. Um and what got you into that in the first place?

Cody Johnston: 30:18
Uh video games. Uh I’m pretty sure every engineer’s uh answer is the same. It’s video games. I I wanted to build out uh my own video game. Uh uh it’s in the back burner. I actually am writing out the script and the story for my first video game now. Um but I when I was in school, I actually was gonna become an auto mechanic. I wanna like I grew up uh with my grandfather who built old cars. Uh my first car was an 83 El Camino that I rebuilt with him. And then I ended up moving schools and getting my first computer class. And then I saw what I could do. Like it’s like playing Mini God when you like create something out of your own like thoughts. Uh it’s a little, it’s it’s even more impressive now with AI to be able to like actually give thoughts over it to it and and build something. But back when I was a kid, it was like, oh, I can build this in code, like I can I can go and and write my own video games. So my first video games were uh a recreation of Duck Hunt and frets on fire uh in Visual Basic. Um but I had a really good teacher who was just like very patient, understood, like explained logic really well, um, and just fostered like an understanding of it. Um and yeah, like I just I went from being the the kid that was like, oh, I’m gonna go repair cars, to being like, I don’t want to touch a car.

Eric Mulvin: 31:42
You never thought about doing the programming for like it’s probably not as exciting, like the onboard computers and all that stuff that’s yeah, no.

Cody Johnston: 31:51
I uh the car was never my problem. I I I I actually parsed it down once, and I’m like, you know what? Like my favorite part about building cars was the troubleshooting, was trying to figure out what the problem was um and then fixing it. Uh so it really translated really well into code because it’s a lot easier.

Eric Mulvin: 32:09
That’s all you do all day now, right? You’re because you’re not writing it, so now you’re troubleshooting, okay, what the heck happened here? Let’s fix this. And that’s what I’m hearing, right? That’s what that’s the shift, right? Like now you’re you’re you’re doing all of your code review, you’re making sure everything is working good before you send it out because you’re not spending the time writing it anymore.

Cody Johnston: 32:29
So a lot of time being spent on that. It’s still a little bit of uh a trust issue. Um I still don’t trust it all that much. Um, but I’m sure with time, like everything it’ll it’ll go away, and I’ll start trusting it a little bit more.

Eric Mulvin: 32:43
Yeah, that’s what I’m hearing. There’s just a lot of a lot of the uh features are waiting to be released because of that that reason that’s like, oh, we gotta make sure, really, really make sure before we release it, this is good. So um, but as that, like we’re we’re here 2026, like, and look how far it’s come just in this year alone. I don’t know, it it’s gonna be crazy to think about what you’re gonna be able to do. Um yeah, now my mind’s starting thinking about some of the possibilities and uh especially gaming. You know, I I think about you talked about gaming, and you know, you that’s what got you into this. Um but it’s so expensive. I mean, how much how much hundreds of millions of dollars is uh you know for developing Grand Theft Auto, for example, the newest release, and kind of like it’s it’s so crazy. So if if there’s a future where we’re all able to come up with games, and then it comes down to not who has the most money to put into development, it’s who has the greatest gameplay idea, who has the best you know user experience and and the most fun. And it doesn’t have to be crazy 3D animation. There was a guy met um he was uh going to Arizona State University out here where I’m at, um, and he had he had built a game. His whole mission, and I’ll have to find his name so I can mention it on here, but his whole mission was like making games for people who have the worst internet and the worst computers. And so it was like the most like polygraphed like animation stuff, but he has like 10 million users playing his game across the world every single day. And so I think you know, we’ve spent so much time thinking, oh, we gotta make it look like it’s the real world. And I don’t not necessarily think that matters as much. Like sometimes like I see the games my kids played on like Apple TV, and I’m like, man, that looks like something I would have played on like Nintendo back in the day.

Cody Johnston: 34:40
So that’s where we’re at right now, is like it’s quick to make these little little tiny games that people can use, like like Mario. Like Mario is a super simple game. Uh, when you break it down because it had to fit on a little cartridge with so little data, um, and that’s where we’re at right now. Within the next five years, the worlds are gonna be huge. Um, they’re gonna be the equal the size of our planet. Um if you want, you could probably build a a video game where you could actually work on the real planet itself. Uh VR is gonna become the go-to device because we’re gonna need more immersion um and procedurally generated worlds are gonna just come out after another. Um I think what people need to start looking into and uh uh right now is uh building out the stories, building out the worlds. Um this is one of the concepts I’m trying to break down, is because I’ve had this idea for a video game since I was 16. Like I I’m like, when I’m able to to understand this enough, I’m gonna build this out. Um so now I get to sit down and actually build out the world, the story, how it’s going to flow, new mechanics. This is the other thing. Because we’re so limited in our hardware and and how we understand things currently, we have a whole new world of video games coming. Like Ready Player One, the Oasis is coming. Uh there’s no like full stop, that is coming. I you can quote me on that, uh, it will happen. Uh, because you now have the ability. The the the problem with VR up to this point has been there hasn’t been good games. It’s hard to program uh a world that doesn’t make you feel awful, it doesn’t it doesn’t immerse you enough while like taking away from what’s happening around you. Um and there was there’s just no games, no stories, no nothing to really grab your focus. Um and I already know of several games that are coming uh in the next two years for the current versions of of uh VR. Uh and I can only imagine what’s coming after that once once VR gets to the point where like you can just put on a set of glasses and go. Uh the the the problems we’re having in it right now is limitations on hardware and limitations on just what’s out there. Um people haven’t thought through all of the new mechanics, and I I have a new mechanic coming in my game. I’m not I’m not mentioning I’m trying to be a little bit more vague on what I mentioned now because people also can reverse engineer and build these things faster than I can. Yeah. So yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 37:18
Yeah, but uh but you know, even thinking now, like if you’re a business owner watching, you’re like, well, I’m gonna plan on making games, that sounds cool. But what about if you made a game for your business that attracted new customers and they got to experience maybe your business a little bit or some aspect of it in a whole different way than like a boring pitch on a 30-minute Zoom call. Like, I’m tired of doing those. Play my video game and you’ll see. You know, take the uh act as uh simulator over here. So I’m excited about that.

Cody Johnston: 37:49
It’s funny you mentioned that because uh Wendy’s just released a Final Fantasy style video game for their franchise. Uh there you go.

Eric Mulvin: 37:56
But you don’t need to have Wendy’s money, we can start doing that ourselves here.

Cody Johnston: 38:00
Yeah, the you just need uh uh enough money to pay out for the compute.

Eric Mulvin: 38:06
So there’s that. But you’re not scaling it to the level of Wendy’s either, so your compute costs should be a lot smaller for your uh business sake. But but uh yeah, so um now we talked about you getting into programming here. Um now you’ve done some interesting work working for the government, um, doing transportation. We talk a lot about transportation here on the show. We have some guests in the space. So, what aspect of transportation did you get to work in?

Cody Johnston: 38:34
Uh so I worked for the Ministry of Transportation as like and the Ministry of Labor. So as like I got to see a lot of the Ministry of Transportation um side of things. Bureaucracy is a terrible thing for transportation, I will give it that. Um, but I got to actually build out a uh when I first started my career with the Ministry of Transportation, I got lucky and got into a proof of concept for our highways um to essentially make it so that those way stations are automated. Um so I built like a proof of concept so that the the truck could come in, it would scan the truck, weigh out everything, and then let the truck go on its way without really needing much work. Um those are some of the things you didn’t really get to people don’t understand, is those way stations take a lot of human effort. They’re tracking each thing, they’re measuring the the trucks, they’re they’re doing those types of things. Um and and getting those automated also helps keep road safety uh up and are very dangerous.

Eric Mulvin: 39:36
They’re not stuck on the they’re not stuck in the way station line, so they’re not being on the road as long and they don’t have to be as fatigued and they can get to where they need to be. So that makes sense.

Cody Johnston: 39:44
And and then just like bad actors, like people like adding too much on their their truck and their truck not being secure enough to be able to hold the weight, it falling across, like those types of things. Um and then as as I grew in my career, I got to see out um we built I I got very I keep on saying I get very lucky, but I was in a division of the ministry that allowed us to kind of do things differently. Um so I got to see a lot of the the proof of concepts that are just starting to come out onto the road now, like um the the the cameras on every road that tracks like the uh license plates. Um I got to see how like how that got built out, like how we’re tracking things to give more reporting metrics. Um because you need the big things with the highways in in Canada is like it’s all controlled by the the province. Um so they need to know like when there’s a pothole or how long how many cars are going across the are the laneway and where people are pulling off so that they can make more developments as it goes things, uh goes further. Um first off, Ontario doesn’t have enough roads. Um but collecting that data was a big set of what I had what we had to do in the ministry. Um my work was mostly around the the Ministry of Labor though at in the final years, where I was building out um products for the public. Um and when I say the public, I mean business owners. We were building out ways for them to like help with their compliance without actually having to like send people and waste tax dollars to go like make sure that their business was safe and ensure like any uh workplace and health safety things were were covered. Um when I left I was kind of uh beaten down at that point because uh it it get it it gets bad. Like the bureaucracy in government is really what kills a lot of the um the innovation. Uh I got lucky, I got in a part of the division that I was like fully innovate, innovate, innovate, innovate. Um so I got very lucky, but by the end I was very disillusioned on like how fast the government was going, which is why I’m quite excited for AI, because I think we’re gonna like remove a lot of the barriers that were causing the problems to have the government be um more at the forefront of doing things faster for people.

Eric Mulvin: 42:10
Yep. Uh I’m one of those people that’s also hopeful for that as well. That’s what I try to share people, uh share with people when they say, you know, what what are you thinking about the future? I’m like, this is there’s no way we can keep running things as inefficiently as we are. I mean, it’s one thing, like, there’s obviously people in government who know that it’s happening. But the general public, I think if we became aware, uh, we’re gonna start demanding things change because, like, man, you you can’t tell me that I got these potholes all over my road, and you’re gonna take six months to fix it, and you fixed three this month only. Like, I don’t know. I I’m not saying it’s happening.

Cody Johnston: 42:48
And we’re gonna increase your taxes too. Like, yeah. Yeah, so the big thing with uh with uh government is it’s just like a lot of bloat for for sake of the the horror stories I could tell uh would would astound you, uh, just of how much waste there is. And it really it really concerns me that the general public doesn’t know more about it.

Eric Mulvin: 43:13
Yeah, I I’ve talked to a few people working in uh government as well, heard uh similar stories, at least in uh at the city level. Um but I of course uh where else everywhere else they’ll have it. Um what about so what was something that you learned working there is a very unique position um being in the government and working on something that impacts a lot of people. Uh what did what was the biggest thing you learned that you’re using today with uh with the way you’re approaching AI or way you’re approaching trying to build things.

Cody Johnston: 43:51
It was I actually got a crash course in how to manage teams. So the nice part about being where I was at was we were a very small team. Um, we only had eight developers working on one project, like 23 people in all, which for government that’s small. Um, but I got to see every aspect of what we were doing. Like I I under I got to sit with the UX designer and understand why users were clicking here instead of over there, how to build out proper flows so that the the people didn’t have to learn what they were doing in order to do it. Um the biggest takeaway that I I got from my work in the in the government was how to build a product, not just uh uh an application, but like actually how to go through the proper flows of uh uh user testing, understanding why we’re building things, um, not just taking the business requirements, but taking it to the the people who are actually going to be using the product and understanding how they’re going to be using it. Um I think it helped me develop out the taste of like, oh, this is why I should build it this way, because it makes more sense from a human side of things to have it over here as opposed to like five layers deep and because the business wanted it five layers deep, and it’s like, well, no, I have the data to back up why we need to have it here, why we need to cut out this process. Um, the other side to it is I also found um I I got to do full stack development. Like it wasn’t just uh back end, front end. It wasn’t just owning one portion of it. I was touching everything. Um so it helped me f make a fuller picture of what I was building. And I think that’s something that a lot of engineers don’t do is they don’t get the full aspects of the products they’re building. They get their little portion, they pass it off to the next person, and the next person takes their portion. Um that kind of insight gave me a lot of understanding in just how to build everything. Um, I have a lot less tech debt because I’m looking at things in the future and saying, okay, well, no, I’ll position it this way because I know this part of it is coming. I’ll build it out in a certain way so that when I get there, I don’t have to do that rework of all of the code I just built out. Um and that’s kind of how I leverage things now is I’m I’m always going back through the code and being like, where can I make things easier for myself in the future? Um because I’m lazy. I really I really don’t like doing more work than I have to. So if I can do the work up front, yeah, it sucks that I have to like put a little bit more effort into it before we get anywhere. Um, but we see the payoffs when I can just put out more and more because I’ve done that prep work.

Eric Mulvin: 46:37
Yep. Yeah, well, isn’t lazy being the one of the best ways to make the program efficient because you don’t want to do all those extra steps? So yeah.

Cody Johnston: 46:48
Was it Bill Gates that says he’ll hire that lazy engineer any day? Yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 46:52
Yep, yeah. I that’s what I was thinking of that quote. So um but you you bring up an interesting point. Like going through that experience, do you feel like because uh I hear that a lot from these successful companies. I I don’t talk a lot to like uh too many um you know, one-man crews here, but with uh bigger companies, I they a lot of them on the podcast they’ve shared their story of like something that’s happened in their career that’s made them realize how important that that user feedback, that teamwork, the interaction that you know you don’t always see all the time. So uh it is interesting you learn that. What do you think if you didn’t go through that experience? I mean, I don’t know, where do you think would you be able to move as quickly with AI right now as you would have?

Cody Johnston: 47:42
It’s hard because I’m I’m very much like a tech forward person. Um even if I hadn’t have had had that experience, I don’t know. I probably not. I actually might have gone into hardware uh had I not gone through that, uh, because hardware was also another one of my interest fields. Um and I had uh a fallback of like if I didn’t get into the ministry, I was gonna go apply for uh a company building computers. Uh so I don’t know if I would have understood to where I am. Although I feel like hardware would have been a little bit better for now because um as software is becoming cheaper and easier to build, um, hardware is where people are making money now because you have to optimize, you have to figure out how to like best build out uh the compute capacity, that kind of thing. Um, even like electrical. I’m I’m trying to learn electrical now because I also want to build out my own computers, I want to build out my own chips. Um wow.

Eric Mulvin: 48:40
So you but you’ve got probably Claude coming up with the schematics for the the electrical board, like everything there, which you probably would have been very difficult to do beforehand. Or you’d have to just get a lot of experience.

Cody Johnston: 48:52
Not only that, it’s just like researching what already exists, how it exists, can I modify it in this way? Um, there’s a there’s a new concept coming out called vibe manufacturing, um, which I’m trying to learn. Uh so like essentially trying to build out the little little intricate products that you need to do uh a thing that you want. Uh somebody just created a a ring that has like um it’s like an aura ring, but it allows you to interact with your agents with a little like interface, and I’m like, oh, that seems fun. Um like I just like to build like this is the one thing that I I have to say with AI. Before AI, I was very depressed. I was like, things are not like I can do only do so much. There’s only so much I can do. I can’t fix things because I don’t understand this. It would take me too long to learn it. Um, and now it’s like, okay, I have an idea, let’s run the idea, see if it’s good, see where I’m I’m wrong. Um like I’m really like checking myself a lot. I mean, like, can I do this? Is this possible? Some has somebody already built it. If they have, why is it not in my hands, right? Um now I’m so hopeful to be like I I know I’m gonna get a robot. Um once I have a robot, I’m gonna start building uh hardware because my problem right now is my fingers don’t work all that well. Um and once I have like the ability to like build out anything, I’m going to build out anything. Like my imagination’s the limit. Um I’m working on a concept for force feedback for video games. So um right now the problem I I have with um VR is like when if you’re swinging a sword, uh there’s no feedback. Like you you hit somebody else’s sword, you don’t get any like pull or or like push. Um I’m trying to build out a device that kind of bridges that gap and allows you to like not have a full-fledged sword, but for still you still hit a virtual sword and feel it like as if you’re combating with a real one.

Eric Mulvin: 50:52
That sounds that that brings it to another level. But yeah, you don’t need the full sword because you’re in goggles, you’re gonna cut up your kitchen.

Cody Johnston: 51:01
You need your body to feel it so that you understand like how to hold it, where to position it, that kind of thing. And I it it’s it’s not part of this video game, but it’s part of the next video game once I see.

Eric Mulvin: 51:12
But like the the oper the possibilities are so endless, it’s so cool. And that you know, you that you don’t have to be. I I would imagine traditionally, you know, if you were like working on big games, you’re probably in a big city somewhere. Um, maybe you have to pick up and move to New York or LA or wherever, you know, UK or somewhere where the the programmers are. So now you could do that anywhere in the world and uh not be held back by your location, which is cool.

Cody Johnston: 51:41
Yeah, uh but yeah. The other side to it is um we’re gonna need to transition our entire way of life. Um there was another concept I’ve I’ve been playing around with is um people should start looking at cities as like not the area you really need to be in, um, because uh the the ability to work from anywhere is as game changer as is. Um, but we’re also going to translate into like as much as I don’t want to give Zuckerberg like a uh hey, like you you had it right, we’re going to be working in the metaverse. Like the this whole like isolation thing is kind of after our conversation about the isolation, like people being isolated. I actually think we’re going to transition into real virtual reality where we can interact and not feel that isolation. But you can be anywhere. Uh I I really think we’re gonna go there.

Eric Mulvin: 52:35
I got an example for you. It was one of my clients, um, I think it was about a year ago. Uh he had uh a virtual assistant with us, and then he had some remote staff. So everyone’s spread out like all over. No one’s in one look, even if you wanted to bring people together, it’s just physically impossible. So uh so he found some, I don’t remember the name of the software, but he found some like virtual office. There’s cubicles, there’s uh he has his door, he’s like, I leave my door open so you could just walk in anytime. But the most impactful thing was the story he shared because one of the person working that my employee, the virtual assistant for him, uh, was going through a tough time. I think like her mom was getting sick in the hospital, like end of life kind of stuff, or passing away. And uh he I think what the thing was like part of it was like they have their cameras kind of on all the time. So they could just see each other and just it instead of because right now you have to call, hey, you know, they don’t pick up, where are they? There, you can see, oh, they’re at their desk, let me give them a call, and I’ll talk to them right there. So he could see, you know, she’s there, but looking kind of down, and they were able to have this whole conversation, and he’s able to comfort her a bit and offer some support, which if that wasn’t in place, I don’t think he would have even known something was going on. And that isolation, there’s a lot of people that come work for me because they were working, um, working remotely, working like a freelance person, and they’re like, I need a community. Like, I’m tired of being by myself all day. Like, I want to have coworkers, I want to have fun events to go to. Uh, we’re seeing a lot of that. I mean, we’re all social people, and we’ve gotten so, so, so isolated. Um, you know, these last especially, I don’t know, I really thought COVID would uh turn things around on that, but it seems like it’s getting worse now. It’s like worse than it was before COVID.

Cody Johnston: 54:29
I I think we’ll we’ll get to that point where like we have community again. It’ll just be different than of what it is now. Like you’ll have people in your real life and you’ll go out and do things in in the real world, but I think you’ll also start to see a lot of uh companies operating in the in a virtual space more. Um mainly, especially if you don’t have to worry about like how your interface works, and you can just like talk to an agent and and go do your work. It’s gonna be a lot easier for people to to interact in in VR goggles or like a screen. I don’t know, I don’t know what the vision is yet, but I I do see it.

Eric Mulvin: 55:06
Um it’s just gonna take neuralink chip, and then you don’t have to wear any goggles. I’m just kidding. But no, I I I definitely see it because especially for me, I have clients across UK, Canada, the US, and the clients are I mean, I know some that they have like Google Meet on all day long, and so they’re able to just communicate freely, they kind of hear what’s happening on one side and the other. They’re that’s not ideal. Like there’s got to be better ways to do that, but it’s like to it’s the only thing that they could think of to bridge those two locations together. Uh, so being that uh you know, we could vibe code these solutions together in the future, it’ll be fun to see you know what what people are able to come up with because I think there’s a lot of different ways that could happen. So the next evolution of uh Zoom, I guess.

Cody Johnston: 55:56
And then not only that, like you’re gonna have people doing more of a commute because you have a car that can drive you, so you can do whatever in your vehicle. Um, I had somebody on not too long ago who works whose strategy for big retail, um, and she’s integrating uh autonomy into how people are going to be going to malls and things like that. And um, I brought up the concept of like, I think there’s actually gonna be people like with uh fully autonomous RVs, so like you’re not gonna buy a house anymore, you’re just gonna buy an RV that can drive around. There’s your home, you can go anywhere.

Eric Mulvin: 56:31
Yeah, why not? That’s that’s a whole see for you guys listening, you know, there’s a lot of doom and boom around AI is gonna take away all the jobs, but what about the jobs that that’s gonna create, you know, because who wouldn’t want to do that? And you’re gonna need refilling, automated refilling stations to fuel that vehicle back up, and it’s not just fuel, you have to dump out whatever’s in the RV, refill so more jobs, and that’s just one little idea. So uh I think there’s gonna be there’s gonna be a whole new age of innovation because of this and people being able to do that, especially if you could just buy your own robot and have it start manufacturing stuff for you. That’s uh that’s pretty good. That’s and I think if it wasn’t for everything happening with AI and software, I think we’d probably be talking a lot more about robotics, wouldn’t you say?

Cody Johnston: 57:23
Yeah, the the biggest thing that I see in terms of like China right now is they built out the robotics revolution well before, like well before now. Like most of their factories are are dark. They don’t have a whole lot of human labor, like they do have the human there to make sure that like things are quality and and and where you need them, but for the most part, their factories build things with robotic arms and they’re just automated processes. Um the Western world has never really got that. Um, and I expected like before AI, like that’s that’s what people would have been building out. It’s just factories to build things um in a more automated fashion. So you would have ended up with more job loss, anyways. Um, but now there’s a whole aspect of like you can actually own your future now, like you can build out what you need, you can start a business with your friends, um, solving a problem, and it costs you $20 for a subscription to an AI to help you do all of the work you don’t understand. Um, I I think you’re gonna see a lot more small companies, people all over um just connecting and being like, I want to solve this problem with you, let’s let’s figure it out. Um, and I think you’re gonna have a lot more innovation, a lot more competition, a lot cheaper, uh, more abundance. Um, and to any investor out there, the best thing to invest in right now is energy, uh, resources.

Eric Mulvin: 58:46
Um like that’s the beginning of the line. Without that, none of this other stuff happens. So that makes sense. Electricity even before the data chips or the the chips and stuff. So yeah. And uh that’s uh well, I mean, I just drove out to California. I had to refill my gas tank out there. Energy is a problem right now, and and and even in the Philippines, uh, I know we’ve been dealing with like rolling brownouts, rolling blackouts right now, because there’s not enough uh supply. And I also connected the whole world here in Phoenix. I know my uh electricity bill, everyone’s electricity bill has gone up, I think 20 or 30 percent in the last year. And if everyone, well, nothing has really changed except one thing. We got a bunch of big data centers coming in. So that’s uh so yes, energy is definitely a big smart advice.

Cody Johnston: 59:41
You’re gonna see a lot of nuclear build-outs, uh, nuclear power plants, uh, nuclear reactors. I honestly see the day where like you’re gonna get this the Iron Man little reactor um.

Eric Mulvin: 59:54
Uh oh yeah, I have no doubt. Uh well, we’re in Phoenix here, so the nuclear reactor in the sky gives us plenty of energy. We just need to put more solar panels up. But uh, I can tell you, like, driving out to California, it’s a six-hour drive through the desert, and there are stretches now where you go 10-15 kilometers, and it’s just all solar panels on both sides, as far as you can see. Um, which, you know, we have the space for it. There is the space. So it’s good to see because I’ve been being in Phoenix, we get 330 days of sunshine a year, and it’s frustrating to see like why has it been more investments in this? Like, we could have free the entire state could have had free energy by now. Um, but it goes back to you know politics, the bureaucracy.

Cody Johnston: 01:00:48
Uh so a lot of the companies right now, it’s actually uh negative for them to invest in solar. Like it actually doesn’t, it’s it’s reverse pro like it’s not profitable at all. Like it’s to the point where they lose money if they invest in it, right? So it’s it’s tackling the monopolies again. It’s these companies that are like, hey, we’re good, we’re gonna continue to milk it as much as we can, and now you’re gonna see a bunch of people now able to like build manufacturing units in a shipping container to be able to pump out solar panels for wherever they’re needed.

Eric Mulvin: 01:01:22
See, and again, going back to the exciting stuff about the future. Uh, because yeah, I did well, I’m curious. You know, you got your podcast, you talk a lot, uh, you know, um the the weird Canadian there, a lot about with uh well with everyone about AI. So what are some trends? What are some what are some things you’re hearing from other people out there in the world uh about AI that might be useful for people listening here that run a business that that they could maybe they’re not thinking about yet or you’re seeing most for right now, most of it is just around like how how you can leverage it.

Cody Johnston: 01:01:59
It’s probably it’s hard for individual businesses to actually understand the concept of it. Like, hey, like it’s not just a Google replacement. Um like you can throw in your budgets, uh, all of your bills into the thing and say, hey, how can I balance these properly? Where can I cut costs? Where can I increase my profit margins? Um it’s getting to the point this is this is where I’m like, hey, like you should probably have this internally, like have a harness, have some way of keeping your data to yourself. Um but the the ability to just kind of check your over your business, look through what you’ve got going on, where you can cut. And I’m not talking people, I’m talking like where you can cut in terms of services or uh.

Eric Mulvin: 01:02:41
If it’s something that’s not profitable that you’re spending more money on, like it’s crazy how often that happens in business, and I’m guilty of it too. It’s just there’s so much things to look at, and the manpower and resources needed to continue to keep up with it, it’s just it just doesn’t exist up until now. Now there is something that could help with that.

Cody Johnston: 01:03:03
Find the areas where you’re doing repetitive work all the time. Like if you’re like going uh uh and doing something over and over again on a computer every day, every hour, like it’s taking up your time. Look at automating it with AI because the the cost this is something I’m trying to learn myself because I do everything myself. Um handing over some of the work to the AI uh actually frees you up to do the more important work, go mingle with clients, go talk to people, um, use your yourself a little bit more. And you can do that on every layer, like not just yourself. Find your employees that are doing things over and over again and say, hey, like how can I free up your time to do more valuable things? Find the value um within your own chain, and you’ll you’ll increase your work, you’ll increase your efficiency cut costs, and be able to just um understand your business more. It it’s weird because it’s it’s a very it’s a very introspective process. Like you really need to understand what you’re doing, why you’re doing it, and seeing if like it’s not worth your time. Uh so just even like saying like here’s the things I do today, or here’s the things I do on a weekly basis. Like, what what is taking up my time? Where can I spend it better? Um, what’s making me money? Where where might the moment the AI has enough information on your business, it’s gonna be able to tell you exactly where things can be better, um, where to find like every dollar that would be better spent somewhere else.

Eric Mulvin: 01:04:37
Yeah, just listening you talk. I mean, I obviously know this stuff, but it’s just giving me even more ideas. We’re like, ah, I know another person in the company that could be. We’ve been doing some of this too with our staff, where it’s like, hey, you fill this out like for the next week. I mean, tell me what you’re working on every hour of the day, so that we could start analyzing it, and yeah, put it in ChatGP, put it in quad, put it somewhere, and and start getting a breakdown uh of that. Because I and it goes back to a phrase I’ve been saying quite a bit. Like, I don’t want you to live as a bot. And there’s people whose job is basically being a bot, and sometimes a very inefficient bot. So uh you can I don’t think it’s very fulfilling as humans to be doing just moving this to here to here all day long, back and forth, copying one cell to another. We’ve had decades of of jobs where that’s been the case, but yeah, what can we do as a society when we’re not we’re not all thinking like doing these meaningless jobs?

Cody Johnston: 01:05:37
It’s a culmination of like we’re gonna need to start looking at who we are as individuals as well. Like, we’re the the biggest thing that anybody could do today is be somebody different. Like, don’t be the same person as like everybody else. Like, don’t come up with your own opinions, have your own character, like have your own taste, because that’s going to help you in the long run, because your difference is going to to Be beneficial in some way, shape, or form when it comes to because that’s what AI AI is best at keeping everything similar, doing things at like the average. Um so any caveat that like uh is a performance enhancer for you or like a change in how other people see things is gonna give you a a little bit of a leg up. Um it’s funny you mentioned like going through every hour like what people do. Uh GPT just got good enough to watch people use the computer and then simulate exactly what they do. So even if it is filling out a form that’s like complex for AI to like understand it from just going through the website, um, you can actually have your employees go through with AI now and it’ll it’ll just do that same process now, uh following shadow work.

Eric Mulvin: 01:06:53
Impressive. It is that is crazy. Um yeah, I definitely coming back from the conference, you know, everybody always asks me the same question because it once they find out I own a call center, especially the tech people, they’re like, what are you doing to replace all the people? So it uh it is it, you know, it’s got me making sure I’m staying one step ahead of everything too, or at least trying the best I can. But uh, you know, what do you think what I don’t know, you got a crystal ball here uh and looked into the future. What do you think the world’s gonna look like in like I don’t know, what is it, 2026? By 2030, yeah. Any predictions that uh I mean right now anything’s possible, I feel like, but maybe there’s some things you you’re seeing.

Cody Johnston: 01:07:41
I’m actually, yeah, so you’re gonna have robotics quite extensively within the next two years. You’re gonna people are gonna have robots in the house. Um that’s just a uh that’s not even a prediction. That’s already like everybody knows this in the tech industry.

Eric Mulvin: 01:07:55
Um I got a I got a robot mop right now running around the house. But I mean something a little more advanced than the mop that bumps into the corners of the wall.

Cody Johnston: 01:08:04
So yeah, it’ll be like your personal chef. It’ll be like um there’s there’s some some rumors I have going around or I’ve been hearing that uh they’re already on cordon blue level chefs uh in robotics. Uh so you’re gonna have your own personal chef. You’re gonna have some like not everybody, there’s going to be like a whole subset of people that like don’t get me wrong, like I understand like just check out of tech entirely. Uh, we’re gonna have the new Amish. Uh and I the new Amish. All right. Yeah. Um I truly believe that, but there’s also going to be a whole host of like new robotics, um automated vehicles, like the uh driverless cars are gonna be uh proliferated. Um I think you’re also going to see a lot of um a lot of websites stop being used. I don’t think you’re gonna have a whole lot like people are spending way too much time on their phones, they’re already trying to get away from it. As people start to um have more and more digital, they’re gonna want less and less digital. Um so I think you’re gonna start seeing glasses come out, um, people just talking in public to the the ether. Um I think it’s gonna do that a lot more. Um you’re gonna see a lot more in terms of entertainment. You’re gonna have uh video games, uh TV, music, comp cont uh concerts. Uh like there’s gonna be more in-person events. Um I think we’re gonna come together as a society. Like we’re gonna we’re gonna go back to the analog days where you’re going out and you’re you’re at the bar with your buddies. Uh you can still do your work at the bar because you’re you’re talking to your agent when he comes back and checks in to you. Um and and yeah, like I I by 2030 I see a lot of this starting to to trickle into to the to society. Like it’s it’s not out there anymore. Like five years ago, it was like, oh yeah, we’re gonna have robots in like two years, and I’m like, no, I don’t think so. Um and now I’m like, yeah, within five years we’ll have robots. Within 10 years, um I I can’t even tell you what the world will look like. Uh because in in ten years, this is something I I’ve also been telling people is like in tech, a year is like five. Um that’s how it was before. Like we were faster, like things were coming out, but it didn’t trickle out to people for quite some time. Um now we’re starting to see the trickle effect from the last five years. Uh things are start gonna start coming real to people. Um the only I I I did the update, there’s only like still like a quarter of the population that’s ever even used AI or uses it regularly.

Eric Mulvin: 01:10:50
Um so not only a quarter so far.

Cody Johnston: 01:10:52
Yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 01:10:53
But and then probably the people who use it regularly is much smaller than that.

Cody Johnston: 01:10:57
Yeah, it’s like so. This is this is the thing I keep keep on coming back to is I’m part of the 0.1%. Like I’ve never in my life been part of the 0.1%, but I am 0.1%, and I think I’m behind. Like, imagine uh like people don’t even know what I see on a daily basis, and it’s like I’m making these predictions knowing full well that things are gonna change. Uh the world’s going to completely um embrace and not embrace it, um, and you’re gonna see a whole new way of life. Uh the uh the people who don’t want to get into this stuff, go into um into travel, go into uh d tourist stuff, uh go be human. Uh that’s that’s gonna pay out like crazy. Um being more cordial, being able to like guide people into nature, um, being able to teach people in public, like uh doing handcrafted uh arts and and those types of things are going to uh profit like crazy um because people are gonna not want the digital aspect of things. But then you’re also going to see the digital aspect be like tons of music, tons of video games, tons of like new realms of of tech, because there’s a whole side of the the uh the civilization that just uh is going to immerse themselves in tech. Um you’re gonna have both at both sides of the coin, and I think it’s going to be more prosperous. Um I just hope the two tribes are cordial. That’s all I ask. If you’re on one side or the other, just stop hating. Uh it it can be done both ways. This is this is the thing people need to understand. Neither way is wrong. It’s just what your choice are. Um, and I think that’s people are gonna have to start being okay with like people making choices.

Eric Mulvin: 01:12:49
Yeah, yeah. That well, thank you for sharing. Uh I it is uh when you say it out loud, because you kind of, you know, we we think about it a bit on what the future looks like, but putting it all together, it feels like uh we’re living in a movie. The the future is coming. And we’ve been I think our whole lives, you know, we’ve seen movies where they always try to show the future and it’s all sci-fi and futuristic, and you know, we got flying cars and all this crazy stuff, and it’s freaking starting to happen. I mean, as we’ve been talking, I got my uh security camera screen behind, and I’ve seen like five Way MOS pass by while we’re we’re on the phone. So and I’m a little I live in the middle of a residential street in a neighborhood, I’m not like on a busy road. So, like, but I’m in Phoenix, we’re like one of the top uh self-driving car cities in the world. Um, so we’ve been seeing it. Although I will show you this. What do you think of this? So I went out last Friday. Actually, um for like maybe the last several months. When I go out and try to be responsible, I’m gonna have a couple drinks. I’m not gonna drive. And uh I’ll try to take a taxi or Waymo or Uber. Like nine times out of ten, the last few times I’ve tried to take in Waymo, it’s the most expensive option. And I just find it so fascinating that I can go and choose to pay less money and pay a human, or go pay Waymo more money, go pay Google um for a uh human-free experience. So I don’t know. I don’t know you make of that.

Cody Johnston: 01:14:20
So for for a time it will be like that. Like human labor will be cheaper than um autonomous labor, mainly because we’re we’re still building out the infrastructure. Um so it’s supply and demand uh laws uh at play, right? Like if you only have five Waymo’s, but you have 50 Ubers, uh the Ubers are gonna be cheaper because there’s more to be able to keep up with the supply. Um for the first little bit, you’re gonna have it’s gonna be cheaper to be a human doing the job. Um but that will quickly go away as soon as automation gets into manufacturing. Um it Tesla themselves just proved this in uh Texas. Uh Waymo just got uh in like a week got outrun by Tesla super uh cybercabs, uh or not cyber cabs, just people using their full self-driving cars and like putting them on the road as taxis. Um it’s just a matter of time. We don’t have the supply. We’re still building out all of the infrastructure to support the the new world. Um, and that’s that’s gonna take time because we’re still we’re still humans doing it. Humans still have to build out the infrastructure so that the robots can take over. And and I mean that in in the not doomer way.

Eric Mulvin: 01:15:38
But uh yeah, no, I I I see it because uh some of the people I’ve spoken to in manufacturing, they’re like, oh, there’s gonna be days where like we’re gonna have parts of manufacturing where humans cannot get into that facility because it’s gonna be designed for robots. There’s no person that’s gonna go in and do maintenance. This little robot that’s all tiny is gonna slide into this little duck that a human would never fit in and go make the maintenance work that needs to be done. But it that kind of work takes, I mean, sometimes you worked in government, that’s sometimes decades. Again, if you you worked in banking, you know, Fintech. I mean, the banks are still on sometimes legacy systems, the airlines. In fact, you know, sad story yesterday coming out of uh Spain, you know, there was a big train accident out there, and I saw a picture of the computers that were being used, and then why did that train fail? I mean, and unless this was fake news, I haven’t verified it, but it looked like I could have gone and played Oregon Trail on it with a floppy drive, uh floppy disk. Like that’s still there’s still so much of our world that is run on these systems that we don’t even realize. You just think, oh yeah, electricity works. No, there’s a lot of old code, which is good and bad, right? I think there’s um there’s some good to it too. Like when when you have these AI bots that are trying to hack into every vulnerability, and it’s like good luck hacking into this thing.

Cody Johnston: 01:17:00
A lot of the problems with the the older tech though is it’s human, right? Like so we built out the code, not understanding it’s gonna have those vulnerabilities in there. And once AI starts building out more and more code, it’s gonna get more secure because they’re gonna have already in place things that are like, oh, I know I know to do this this way so that it doesn’t get attacked in this way. Um, one of the biggest uh for for developers out there, there’s there’s a mainframe language called COBOL, and a developer is like anywhere from 140 grand a year to like 250 uh to be able to just maintain the databases. Um and now I just saw not too recently, somebody’s like, I pay me 50 grand, I will rebuild your entire COBOL database in Rust with AI, and it’ll be super secure, it’ll run on uh modern infrastructure, it’ll be up to date, um, and it’ll be like and I’m like that’s a good business model right there because you’re just you’re taking the code that you know is like ancient and only does certain things because it can only do certain things, and at least bringing in a modest modernized modernized approach to be a little bit more uh forward ready. Uh because I think that’s where people need to start looking is like, how do I position my code, my my business to be able to embrace the future?

Eric Mulvin: 01:18:23
Yep. Awesome. Well, we’re getting close to the end here. I can’t believe we already talked this long. So uh always end every show with the same question. And so uh I wanted to ask that question to you, and I’m really curious what your answer would be. But we’ll just say, okay, well, with everything you accomplished, and you’ve gotten to do a lot already, uh, and obviously a lot more. I I I can hear all the things that you’re uh excited for for the future, but what would be that one thing that that your unfinished business that you think in your lifetime you’d like to be able to accomplish in your career in your life?

Cody Johnston: 01:18:58
It goes back to uh my original story of building uh an 83 Alcamino with my grandfather. Um I at some point I’m going to rebuild that car. Um, I actually have a motorcycle, an 84 uh Honda Nighthawk in the basement right now that’s like demolished. I only paid 500 bucks for. Um I’m planning on restoring that as a as a proof of concept that I can actually do it. Um, but eventually I want to rebuild that car again.

Eric Mulvin: 01:19:24
How far did you ever get into rebuilding it with your grandfather? Like, did you get pretty deep into learning how to do that?

Cody Johnston: 01:19:30
Or not not enough to to to be comfortable with it. That’s why I was like, okay, I’ll start on a motorcycle with a simple engine where I can’t like blow up my house all that much. Um But uh yeah, I I wish I had done a lot more with them and learned a lot more. Um, but I definitely want that car back. Um, even though I’m only gonna be able to drive it on certain highways probably and and not um the automated roads where it’s only automated cars are allowed to drive. Eventually. Yeah.

Eric Mulvin: 01:20:03
But I’m guessing you’re really pushing your your capabilities here, I’m sure, with AI to like, hey, how do I do this? How do I like this is the thing I’m trying to put in here, you know, help me out, right?

Cody Johnston: 01:20:15
I mean because it’s one of the reasons I want a robot because I don’t have the strength to like lift the car parts.

Eric Mulvin: 01:20:21
Hmm. There you go. All right, cool. Cool. Well, Cody, thank you so much for uh taking some time to be on the show and sharing your uh very, very uh interesting um perspective on AI uh thanks to the podcast and also your uh career here. So for people who are watching and maybe wanted to follow the podcast, or maybe there’s some uh maybe there’s a need that they heard from um from your talk today where that, hey, maybe I could work with you on something. How did they get in touch?

Cody Johnston: 01:20:53
Anywhere you can find The Weird Canadian, even uh LLMs, like throw it into your machine, say I want to connect with The Weird Canadian and uh it’ll serve me up. I thankfully got very lucky. I am the one and only. I built out the brand uh quite enough that uh I’m the only one. And it’s strange enough that uh people didn’t want it. So I was quite quite excited. Um so Weird Canadian on every social media platform, uh theweird canadian.ca, um, and my email is cody@theweirdcanadian.ca.

Eric Mulvin: 01:21:23
So you need to tell me there’s no other Weird Canadians in Canada? You’re the only one?

Cody Johnston: 01:21:27
I’m the only one who wanted to take the name. Um I’ll just play it.

Eric Mulvin: 01:21:33
But all right, well, thank you guys for watching. And uh and again, thanks for Cody for being on the show. And if you guys wanted to hear more uh amazing interviews from people out there who are shaping the future, like Cody, then make sure you uh follow and subscribe to us here. We’re at Unfinished Business with Eric Mulvin on anywhere you listen to podcast and on social media @BizWithEric. And so until next time, thank you guys for watching, and we’ll catch you on the next episode.