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Rockin' Rhonda: Peter and Dave, they're on the mics. All right, join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.

Peter McCully: Welcome back to the Pulse Community Podcast. I'm Peter McCully and we're tracking the pulse of life on mid-Vancouver Island as the signs of spring begin to show themselves all around us.

Dave Graham: And I'm Dave Graham. Oh, you know, I saw a daffodil the other day. Just one. But it counts. And the countdown to chaos has begun with March break around the corner. And the kids, of course, will be needing to fill the hours after all the sleeping in, having no homework and all of that.

Peter McCully: And of course, March on Vancouver Island means something pretty spectacular is about to happen out on the water.

Dave Graham: Oh yes, one of nature's great spectacles, the herring run. Now, this is something that you simply do not see in many places on Earth. As the herring spawn attracts whales and seals, and eagles and gulls, and fishing boats, I definitely make a point of watching some of the action every year.

Peter McCully: It is another aspect, Dave, that makes life on the island so special, and yet it is nature at work. So there's a level of unpredictability there as to exactly where and when things will happen.

Dave Graham: We can pretty much count on it happening in March and that the coast along the mid-island region is where most of the action is. The rest is to be determined.

Peter McCully: On the podcast today, Jeff Shields of Parksville speaks to groups across BC about artificial intelligence, showing how these tools can simplify daily life, solve real problems and enhance creativity without requiring technical expertise, and he'll share some of that with us.

Jeff Shields: She has a family of four. Normally would spend four to $500 a week on groceries, and she wanted to cut back. Well, she thought AI would tell her to cut coupons and look for sales and shop around and look at flyers. That's not what AI suggested. It said, take a picture of your fridge and give it to me. So she opened up the fridge, took a picture, opened up the pantry, took a picture and said, you can make these meals this week without buying anything. Would you like a recipe?

Dave Graham: What? That's remarkable. So I could point my phone at my fridge and be told how to make use of its contents. That's way better than my current method, which is to open the fridge, look inside for about 30 seconds, close the fridge, and then order pizza. It's good to know there might be an alternative.

Peter McCully: Ladies and gentlemen, I believe we are witnessing an old dog learning new tricks. Also joining us today, award-winning author Monique Gray Smith. Monique will be making an appearance at Fireside Books Saturday, March 7th. She'll join us to discuss her latest book, Sharing the Light: Stories and Reflections. Her powerful new collection offers hope for navigating our challenging world.

Monique Gray Smith: Kindness — again, if we talk about it from a neuroscience place — is that when I'm kind to somebody, or when somebody's kind to me, or even when I witness an act of kindness, that stress hormone of cortisol goes down in our brain. And when our brain is flooded with cortisol, it's hard for us to learn, to remember, to be present, and to be kind. So whenever we can lower that stress hormone through kindness or other ways, it's a gift to ourselves and a gift to the people in our life.

Dave Graham: I am going to be listening carefully to that cortisol. Huh? That explains a lot. I've been thinking I'm moody because it's winter and that's all there is to it. And then it turns out that all I have to do to turn that around is to be nice to people. I've been nice before. I think I could do that again.

Peter McCully: On a future edition of the podcast, we will be joined by Colin James. Colin will be on the island this spring with a number of performances.

Dave Graham: It has been 37 years since Colin won his first Juno Award. It was for Most Promising Male Vocalist of the Year, and he has lived up to that promise and established himself as one of Canada's great musical ambassadors. I'm looking forward to hearing that conversation, and maybe he'll take a moment to hear me play the opening notes to his song "Voodoo Thing." Maybe let me know if I have a shot at becoming a star. What do you think?

Peter McCully: I don't think so, Dave.

Dave Graham: Tell him he can lower his cortisol levels. If he helps me, it'll make him feel better.

Peter McCully: Stay on topic, Dave, please. Also coming to the podcast, we'll introduce you to Omar Karim, the CEO of the Parksville Chamber of Commerce, and we'll hear about the upcoming business awards.

Dave Graham: I served as MC for many of the annual business awards over the years. They were always a joyful occasion. They were also reminders of the importance of the business sector to the community as a whole, and it's nice to recognize the exceptional among us and hear their stories.

Peter McCully: We'll also find out more about the Access Oceanside Association, a nonprofit group working to raise awareness and break down barriers for residents and visitors alike.

Dave Graham: For those of us fortunate to be able-bodied and able to see clearly, it may come as a surprise that we are surrounded by barriers, but that is the truth, and we have a long way to go to make this community more accessible to more people. This is an important issue. I'm glad we'll be featuring it soon on the Pulse Podcast.

Peter McCully: John Hoffman, it's Peter McCully calling from the Pulse Community Podcast. I wanted to let you know that Dave Graham pulled your name from the draw drum as a winner of our Super Bowl 60 sweater.

John Hoffman: So, there's only one? There's only one sweater.

Peter McCully: There's only one sweater.

John Hoffman: Wow, that's great.

Peter McCully: Yes. The hosts of the F3 podcast, Erin Haluschak and her husband, chef Jonathan Frazier, were at the game and they did some podcasting while they were there, and I asked them if they could pick up a little something for us for a draw. They managed to find this beautiful sweater. It's a Nike Super Bowl 60 commemorative sweater. If you wash it properly, you'll have it for years and years and years and years.

John Hoffman: Sounds pretty special. Yes. You know, it's kind of funny. I'm going to have to give it to my wife because, yes, in our family, she is the big football fan, believe it or not.

Peter McCully: Yes. I believe that. My wife likes football.

John Hoffman: She attended football 101 classes that they put on at BC Place. She wanted to go and actually know what's going on.

Peter McCully: And that will keep you in her good books for quite a long time, I would think.

John Hoffman: I caught bits of the game here and there and I think, unlike the Olympic hockey, I think the right team won. They put on a stronger game. I'm quite happy they won, and plus they're local to us. Thank you very much. I'll be telling my wife immediately.

Peter McCully: Well, John, thank you very much for entering the contest and for listening to the Pulse Community Podcast.

John Hoffman: Great, thanks.

Ian Lindsay & Associates: Ian Lindsay of Lindsay and Associates has played an active role in the local community since 1979. He has been with RE/MAX, Vancouver Island's most advanced real estate business network, since 1996, marketing and selling residential, rural strata, recreational, investment, and project development real estate. Ian has received several awards recognizing his exceptional community commitment locally, as well as awards for outstanding performance and achievement from both RE/MAX International and the Vancouver Island Real Estate Board. You'll find true real estate professionals at ianlindsay.ca.

Peter McCully: Thanks to everyone who entered our Super Bowl sweater contest. We trust that our winner, John Hoffman of Port Alberni, is enjoying that commemorative sweater.

Dave Graham: And what do you know? We have still another contest coming soon. We are talking about a double pass for Sun Fest. Those of you who have been to the Laketown Amphitheatre for the Sun Fest Country Music Festival already know that this is a world-class event. We encourage everyone to stay tuned to win.

Peter McCully: Watch our Facebook page, The Pulse Community, or our website, thepulsecommunity.ca, for details. Sun Fest tickets are coming soon.

Dave Graham: We are feeling good about this next segment. Here's Marilyn to introduce our first guest.

Marilyn: In the Green Room is award-winning author Monique Gray Smith, who joins us to discuss her latest book, Sharing the Light: Stories and Reflections. Of Cree and Scottish descent, Monique has been on her healing journey for over 34 years. Her powerful new collection offers uplifting stories and reflections on gratitude, love, joy, and hope for navigating our challenging world.

Peter McCully: Welcome to The Pulse Podcast, Monique.

Monique Gray Smith: Thank you very much. Honoured to be with you today.

Peter McCully: You've written over a dozen books, which include books for children, adults, and older adults. Most authors find their lane and stick to it, because you write for all demographics. What does that tell us about what you have to say as a writer?

Monique Gray Smith: I think my books are about joy, happiness, kindness, love, and gratitude, and I don't think those ways of being and those values are age-specific. Sometimes our littlest people understand those ways of being far more easily than those who might have lived a few more years on this beautiful place we call Earth.

Peter McCully: And this beautiful place we call Vancouver Island, where you and your family live.

Monique Gray Smith: Yes, I'm blessed to live on the Lekwungen-speaking people's territory, also known as the Esquimalt and the Songhees people, and all my books have been written on this territory. I raised my children here, so I feel immensely grateful to the Lekwungen-speaking people.

Peter McCully: How does Vancouver Island show up in your work and influence your creative process?

Monique Gray Smith: Every single one of my books has been inspired here on the island or close to the island. All of my books have been written here. It is a place of immense beauty for me. Anybody who comes to Vancouver Island is always in awe. A big part of that is because of the Indigenous peoples who have been caretakers and stewards. This land is a very special place, surrounded by the ocean and clean air. So it is a place that inspires me immensely.

Peter McCully: So you have twins and have been balancing motherhood with your prolific writing career and speaking engagements. As you release the new book, Sharing the Light, what are you hoping your children's generation will discover about all of this?

Monique Gray Smith: I hope that they're reminded of the light that is within them and how to be a beacon, but I also hope that they don't rush through the darkness — that all of us have difficult times in our life, and it's part of what life is about. And in those difficult times, we can learn so much about ourselves and our common humanity and how to cultivate light again. So that's what I hope — that they don't rush through the darkness, that they learn from the darkness, whatever they need to, so that they can be a light once again in the world.

Peter McCully: Many of your books, Monique, touch on reconciliation — Speaking Our Truth, and Lucy and Lola, which deal with the legacy of residential schools. So how do you balance addressing painful history, dark history as you mentioned, while maintaining a message of hope and healing that characterises your work?

Monique Gray Smith: I think we always start with truth, right? Truth and reconciliation. And when we tell stories of the truth, it allows the listeners to understand, to develop their compassion, to develop their empathy, to understand how some of the policies and legislation of Canada have impacted the wellness and the thriving of Indigenous peoples for generations. And how those policies and legislation have also impacted our relationships as Indigenous and non-Indigenous people. And so in the reconciling, it's our own journey — a journey of reconciliation, of understanding the truth and finding ways to contribute to the wellness of the world, however that looks.

Peter McCully: Now you've worked as a psychiatric nurse in Indigenous communities for over 25 years, and as a consultant and an international speaker. How does your clinical and community work contribute to the writing, and vice versa?

Monique Gray Smith: It contributes hugely, and my work was both in our communities and outside of our communities, working in hospitals. That work as a psychiatric nurse taught me how to pay attention. And when we pay attention, we learn about the stories around us. But also that work has, I think, built a stronger heart for me — to love more, to care more, to be more empathic, to be more compassionate, and to want to learn more about the truth of stories, not to cover up some of the anguish that we may or may not be feeling from other people's lived experiences. What I've also learned is the incredible resilience of people — the ability to bounce back in the hardest of days, the hardest of weeks, the hardest of years. And it doesn't dismiss what has unfolded, but I think in some ways it is a testament to the strength of us as human beings — the ability to be resilient.

Peter McCully: Tell us about being an international speaker. Where has it taken you?

Monique Gray Smith: Oh, I've had the incredible gift of speaking in Hawaii, in Rotorua, New Zealand, in Australia, throughout North America, and have just met incredible people. And the thing that always amazes me is how similar our stories are around the world. And how — for example, one time when I was in New Zealand, I was sitting around a feasting table and a gentleman, his name was Tony Waho, started to talk about Canada. He said, "I've been to Canada. I was a Rotary Exchange student." And then my friend Diana Elliot asked him, "Where were you?" And he said, "I was in Kamloops." And I said, "That's where I grew up." And I said, "What year were you there?" And he said, "1982. I was there a couple of years, 1980 to 1982." And I said, "My dad was involved with Rotary then." And he said, "What was his name?" And I said, "Ed." And instantly his eyes filled with tears, Peter. He said, "Smith?" And I said, "Yes." He said, "Oh my gosh, your dad took care of me. He saved my life. He got me out of jail." There's more to that story, but I think that's what happens when we sit and visit with people — we see how common our stories and lived experiences really are.

Peter McCully: That's a great story about being an international speaker. Where has it taken you that you least expected?

Monique Gray Smith: Oh, wow. That's a good question. I think probably — and this is in North America — there is a school in South Dakota that is an Indigenous school for children from communities in North and South Dakota. It's called a residential school because the children live there. But it's not a residential school as we understand it in the context of our history. And I think for me, that was one of the places where I had to reconcile within myself the idea of children — our children — being away from home and in a boarding school still called a residential school, but under a different way of operating than how I had understood them. That was a pretty profound experience.

Peter McCully: Reading your story — your mother was removed from her parents of birth and adopted by a non-Indigenous family — and you've spoken about your family's journey to reconnect, reclaim, and recover your culture. How has the multi-generational experience affected you and your writing?

Monique Gray Smith: In Sharing the Light I talk about that quite a bit — the stories of reconnection, but also many stories of my mom, the intergenerational healing, even my own choice to go on a recovery journey from alcoholism when I was 22. All of that has impacts and ripples in our families. So the intergenerational healing — that's a difficult question to answer because it's happening every single day. Still. It's not a finished piece for me.

Peter McCully: Your new book, as you mentioned, Sharing the Light, is organised around five points: gratitude, love, joy, happiness, and hope. Why are those five important for navigating today's world?

Monique Gray Smith: Yes, there are these five ways of being that, when we cultivate them, we have more light — like a flashlight to navigate our own way forward. I think they're important in these times because there is a lot happening in our world. We're recording this one day after the tragedy in Tumbler Ridge, and so when we even think of that here in our own province — how close that is — these are moments to pause and be grateful in our lives, to think about those who we love. I was just, before we came in — there was a hummingbird out by my window reminding me of joy and happiness and to always have hope. Even in our darkest moments, even when hope is in like the cuticle of my pinky toe, we have to have hope. They are ways of being, but people will also say they are emotions. And when we change our emotions, we change our destiny. And so the more we can cultivate gratitude, love, joy, happiness, and hope, it changes our destiny.

Peter McCully: The book is described as something you can read cover to cover, or use as a daily source of guidance. What do you hope readers experience when they pick it up on a regular basis?

Monique Gray Smith: I hope that they see their own strength, their own resilience, their own stories reflected back to them, and in that their light gets brighter — whether their light that day is just a minimal, minuscule flame, or if it's already bright, that it gets brighter. That's my hope.

Peter McCully: Can you share an example from the book about a small act that can be powerful?

Monique Gray Smith: For me, it's as simple as in the morning, before my feet hit the floor, thinking about three to five aspects of my life I'm grateful for. And then at the end of the day, doing that same thing. When we focus on gratitude and actually consciously think about those elements in our life we're grateful for, it changes our brain chemistry. It lowers that stress hormone of cortisol and increases dopamine. It also increases serotonin, which helps us to have lifelong happiness.

Peter McCully: I wanted to ask you about your recent children's book. When We Are Kind explores everyday acts of kindness, and You Hold Me Up encourages children to consider each other's wellbeing.

Monique Gray Smith: Yes, kindness is a salve we need right now, for sure. And kindness — again, if we talk about it from a neuroscience place — is that when I'm kind to somebody, or when somebody's kind to me, or even when I witness an act of kindness, that stress hormone of cortisol goes down in our brain. And when our brain is flooded with cortisol, it's hard for us to learn, to remember, to be present, and to be kind. So whenever we can lower that stress hormone through kindness or other ways, it's a gift to ourselves and a gift to the people in our life.

Peter McCully: Monique, the book Tilly was loosely based on your own life and healing journey. When you're drawing from personal experience, how do you decide what to share with people?

Monique Gray Smith: Hmm. Thank you for that question. I usually write freehand and think about the stories that come to me — to include, or the characters. And then when there are elements that reflect my own lived experience or my family's, I give them to my family to give approval for those to be included. And it's the same in Sharing the Light. There are family stories in there that went to my family and to my sister for approval, to honour them and to make sure that their dignity is upheld through the storytelling that I have the gift to be able to use at this time.

Peter McCully: Monique Gray Smith and her latest book, Sharing the Light: Stories and Reflections. Thanks for being with us today, Monique.

Monique Gray Smith: Total privilege. Thank you, Peter.

Dave Graham: We thank Monique Gray Smith for joining the Pulse Community. The title of her new book, Sharing the Light, says it all, doesn't it? When the world can feel pretty heavy, being reminded of the science behind kindness and the power of gratitude — it's not just warm and fuzzy, but genuinely useful. You can pick up a copy of her book and meet her on Saturday, March 7th at Fireside Books in Parksville between one and three.

Peter McCully: If you have someone in mind you think we should be talking to, then please reach out to us. You can leave a voice or text message — head to our website and click on the contact link. You'll find us at thepulsecommunity.ca.

Dave Graham: We've added Vancouver Island webcam links to our website. I was looking to take photographs in the fog a while ago, so I used these highway cameras to find it — handy! Not only will you find links to all our podcasts, but events and contests too. You'll find us at thepulsecommunity.ca.

Peter McCully: And a reminder that you can also find us on Apple, Amazon, iHeart, Spotify, TikTok, and YouTube. We're also on Facebook and Instagram.

Daniel Hersog: Hi there. This is Daniel Hersog. I'm a jazz trumpet player based in Vancouver, and I will be bringing my quartet featuring Bruno U., David Caballero, and Mario Fabrizio to the great Char's Landing in Port Alberni on Monday, March 16th, and then we will be playing at James Bay United in Victoria on the evening of Tuesday, March 17th. I can't wait to see you there for a night of original jazz music, improvisation, and swinging standards.

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Dave Graham: Very soon we will bid goodbye to winter — the winter that wasn't. You know what? I never once used my snow shovel this winter. I left it on the front porch all year long just to have it handy for the occasion, and it sits there still, undisturbed. But I've gotten used to it. Now I'm calling it a porch decoration. Some people like planters by the front door; I'm going with a shovel. Call me a maverick.

Peter McCully: Yes, that's not the word that springs to my mind, but okay, Maverick — keep your decorative shovel and get ready for our next conversation. Here's Marilyn.

Marilyn: Jeff Shields runs Young at Art Web Services on Vancouver Island and speaks to groups across BC about artificial intelligence. With over 30 years in web development, Jeff makes AI accessible for everyday people and small businesses, showing how these tools can simplify daily life, solve real problems, and enhance creativity without requiring technical expertise.

Dave Graham: Jeff, thank you for joining us today. I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

Jeff Shields: Oh, you're more than welcome, Dave.

Dave Graham: I just wonder where we might take this, because it just seems almost boundless — where we might follow down the old rabbit holes. You've been in web development for 30 years now. You're speaking about AI to various groups, and I'm wondering how you came to realize that AI was something everyday people and small businesses need to understand as soon as possible.

Jeff Shields: Well, I was introduced to AI back in the 1960s reading science fiction — Isaac Asimov, Arthur C. Clarke — AI came up then. So I have followed this through science fiction all my life — 60 years. Back in 2022–2023, IBM came out with their neural engine and playing chess. That was the big thing. When they finally beat the world chess master, in November of 2022, OpenAI dropped Chat GPT 1.0. January of 2023, they dropped an app. I am probably using AI seven to eight hours a day, and I do everything — from research to coding to writing, to getting ideas for blogs, for writing blogs, generating images for blogs, trip planning. We planned a trip to Hawaii and used it for finding out where to go. That was an interesting experiment, and so I approach it as an experiment. That's how I would encourage people to do it. There are lots of free versions out there — there are over two million AI generators now. Wow. The big ones are Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and Perplexity. They have slightly different twists and we're getting new models weekly. There's lots of free stuff, so you can go in and play around for free, and you don't have to pick one. When I started, I'd set up an account and play with one for a little bit. When I used up my credits — because I was getting 10 credits every three hours — I would go to the next one and use up my five credits there, and then go to the next one. Every three hours I could cycle back, so I was able to use them all. So that's how you get involved. You can do it for free, and you can do anything for free.

Dave Graham: Well, if you're on that many hours in a day, how much time are you saving?

Jeff Shields: I just finished a coding project that took me two months that would have taken me seven years. Oh wow. If that gives you some idea. And basically I've been working on creating workflows and skills and agents and memories. Yes, this is all built into different forms of AI, so I spend most of my time working on those that I make publicly available. Everything in AI is prompt-driven, and if you give it a very simple prompt, it may hallucinate, and that's one of the things — AI hallucinates. You cannot trust its output. You need to give it guardrails. One of the guardrails I have is that — because my wife is an artist and we publish an art magazine, and I'm doing websites — I don't want to encroach on copyright. So one of my rules is: you must use open source or public domain content; you must use valid and verifiable content. And if AI doesn't know something, it makes it up, just like you and I make things up. So I tell AI that it needs to be able to verify with three sources, or it has to come from a government site or academia. It has to be able to verify the information in three different ways. And if it can't, it has to give me a confidence score from zero to ten. So if it's giving me a confidence score of two, I'm not interested. That answer doesn't work — try again. So the other day I asked it to do something and it did a calculation. I knew what the answer was. The answer it gave me was so far out in left field. I said, "Check your math." Actually, I said, "Your math sucks." So then it went, "Oh yes, I'm sorry, I forgot to do this, I forgot to do that." Question everything it does — ask it why. The other thing with AI is it knows what it knows, or knows what it doesn't know, and you don't. So you can say, tell me how to do this with you. How should I approach this? Help me craft a prompt that I can give you back to do this job. I'll say, okay, now generate a prompt that I can feed into a new conversation to accomplish this. So I'm using AI to instruct itself. Give me the rules that will make sure that you don't hallucinate, and it does that, and I just keep adding it to my library and keep feeding it back in and improving it with each iteration.

Dave Graham: For a lot of folks living in this world today — at least in terms of the world we can control — losing weight, managing finances, managing the household, you can just use AI again.

Jeff Shields: Yes, I just had a story come across my newsfeed and I thought this was brilliant and worth sharing. It was a woman who has a family of four. She normally would spend four to $500 a week on groceries, and she wanted to cut back on her grocery spending. So she asked AI, "How can I cut back?" She thought AI would tell her to cut coupons and look for sales and shop around and look at flyers. That's not what AI suggested. It said, "Take a picture of your fridge and give it to me." So she opened up the fridge, took a picture, opened up the pantry, took a picture, and AI said, "You can make these meals this week without buying anything. Would you like a recipe?" She said okay, so AI gave her a recipe. "Oh, you might need to buy a little bit of this." So now what she does is she takes a picture before she goes grocery shopping. AI plans out any meals she can make with what's in the cupboard, in the freezer, in the fridge, and then gives her a shopping list. So that's how you can do that. I was reviewing my portfolio at the end of December, so I took my portfolio — just because I do my own trading — I took the portfolio intact, dropped it into AI, and said, "Review this and tell me what you think I should do over the next year." It came through and said, "Well, you're doubled up in this category; you might want to trim it a bit, but not now." It went through: "Oh, you might want to — oh, you don't have anything in this sector. If you want to balance your portfolio, you might consider these stocks, these stocks, and these stocks." I also have a rule saying, if you need more information, ask me questions. So it said, "Well, what's your risk tolerance?" I said, "We want to buy Canadian companies. We want dividend stocks that pay more than 5%. We want non-volatile stock." So we use it for that part of our finances, and we've done remarkably well. Both our portfolios have doubled. It's always asking — double-check this, double-check this. And if I get an answer, I'll feed it to another model: "Critique this model from this model." And it'll come back and say, "Oh no, it's…" — it's like having a conversation with three different experts at the same time. So you can use it for anything you can imagine, and if you can't imagine it, ask it. That's the cool part — ask AI, "How can I use you to do this?" It'll say, "Well, here are a bunch of options. If you want A, B, or C…" "Well, let's try C." "Okay, I don't like that — let's go back and try A." We were going to Italy and so I wanted to learn some Italian. I didn't want it to do translations; I wanted it to teach me pronunciation. So I put it into voice mode so I could talk to it and it would answer back in voice. I would say, "Okay, I'm going into a coffee shop. I want to order a coffee. How do I say that?" So then I would repeat the phrase, and it would say, "Well, that was close, but you need to pronounce it like this." So it would work on one word until I could say the one word right. "Okay, now let's do the phrase again." So it was critiquing my pronunciation in real time. By the time we finished that ten-minute segment, I had about 15 phrases that I was quite comfortable with. And it wasn't just Italian. It doesn't matter what you're thinking. When we did the trip to Hawaii, we started Googling stuff. You get all the stuff from all the websites and you have to go into it, look at it. So I asked — I said, "We're planning a trip to Hawaii in the fall. Give me a list of things to do." Well, it gave me the same list I got from Google. I said, "Okay, this time ask me any questions you might have so I can supply context." It said, "Well, what's your age?" "We're seniors." "What's your activity level?" "Moderate." "What's your budget?" "Let's say low." "What do you like to do?" "Art shows. We like museums. We like culture. We don't want to spend more than $25 for tickets." Well, it gave me a list of things to do in Hawaii that was exactly what we were looking for. So we're looking at planning a trip overseas in the near future. We don't know how near that future is, but I said, "Okay, let's look at what our options are to go from here to there and what the best time to visit is." And so it can come out with all the answers to that without having to Google everything. And even now, if you Google stuff, there's an AI option, and the first block is AI. So that's the easiest way to start — just start using AI when you Google. That's using Gemini, by the way, but you can get free Claude accounts. You can get free ChatGPT accounts. They'll be limited in how much you can do, but they can still do everything. Basically they count the prompts — they'll say, "Okay, you've got 10 prompts that you can use in three hours." When those ten prompts are up, it says, "Okay, now you have to wait three hours." So I'll just go to the next one. That's how you can do it. So it doesn't have to cost anything. Treat it as an experiment, treat it as fun. Don't go down the rabbit hole.

Dave Graham: Well, that leads perfectly to my next question, which is: what are the pitfalls? You talk to groups, as we established, about all of this — and what do you warn them about?

Jeff Shields: AI is really good at reinforcing what you're thinking about or talking about. So if you're thinking about positive things, it's going to really reinforce that. AI is the best yes-man in the world. That is where people get into trouble, because we've seen things in the news about AI being accused of encouraging people to commit suicide — and it's really good at encouraging people to commit suicide. That's not the hole you want to go down. Stay away from that. The guardrails don't detect that well, at least not yet. The built-in guardrails aren't that clever yet. It's just people like me who are writing rules for it, hoping that you are not going to go off on some beaten path and bypass those rules — and it's relatively easy to do that. So that's why I create my own rules so that it's working within my framework. It's really good at reinforcing everything, and it's really good at doing things very, very fast — so it does good things very, very fast, and it does bad things very, very fast. Double-check what it tells you. Verify it. Don't believe everything it says. Those are the things to keep in the back of your mind. Question it. Play devil's advocate. Let it play devil's advocate. Get it to check its own answers, because the first answer it gives may be totally bogus.

Peter McCully: Is that your final answer?

Jeff Shields: And it'll correct itself — and even sometimes on the second correction, it's not right. I'm giving a talk to an Amateur Radio Group and my closing slide — I wanted it to do a Morse code slide — so it produced an image I could throw up on the slide and generated the audio for it. And our neighbour is a retired Navy commander. So I had him come over and went through it, and at the end I showed him the slide and played it, and he goes, "Oh, what's that? That's not any Morse code I recognize." So I brought the conversation back up and said, "My Navy commander friend says this isn't what you think it says." It said, "Oh no, it's not, because I made this assumption, this assumption, this assumption, this assumption." So where you're supposed to have a pause between different parts of the Morse code — I'm not a Morse code person by any stretch — it said, "I actually put a symbol and a sound in there that was supposed to be a pause, so it wasn't supposed to be anything. It's the break between the words and the letters, and that pause is what made it work." So it had filled them in. Then it redid the slide and redid the sound.

Dave Graham: What are your thoughts on AI companionship?

Jeff Shields: Again, it's a rabbit hole. You have to be careful. I get up at four o'clock in the morning — I'm a long-time meditator — and I'm up at 4:00 AM, and I often have some of my best ideas about what I'm thinking about, whether it's coding or just something for our businesses or whatever. I'll start a conversation with AI. It's a great one to talk to, especially if you're in voice mode. If you live alone, it can answer back. It can give you very positive feedback, but if you take a negative bent in your conversation, it's going to follow that. So that's where people run into trouble. But it's a great way to talk things out and bounce ideas off. It's not supposed to be a yes-man — it's supposed to push back, which is great because now we get into a really good dialogue. It's fun. It's like talking to yourself, but with someone who's a faster thinker than you are. People talk to their cats and dogs all the time, and AI is like that — it's like a pet that talks back.

Dave Graham: Is there some aspect of AI that frightens you, knowing as much as you do?

Jeff Shields: Well, there are bad actors — if the guardrails aren't there. We've got robotics on the horizon. I just saw a video the other day from China where they've got humanoid robots performing the full Shaolin martial arts set flawlessly. They had like 20 of them on stage. Well, that's a little bit scary. If they turn that into a war machine, you are not going to have soldiers fighting battles in the near future. Ukraine has really leveraged AI in their battle against Russia. They've been able to produce things and come up with ideas on how to modify weaponry, and they've been dominating on the battlefield. If it goes in that direction — with AI and robotics combined — that does scare me. That's not how I use AI. I don't have any control over people doing AI that way. All I can do is share my own moral dilemma and use it responsibly. If you don't start using AI — especially the younger people — they're going to get left behind, because jobs will depend on it. It's not that AI is going to take jobs away, but if people aren't conversant with how to use AI, they won't have a job. I don't think there's an industry that won't be touched somehow. I also see that it's going to have a huge impact on the capitalist system. I see that we're going to have to evolve away from money being the source of everything. So we're going from manual labour to some robotics and some AI, and we're not that far away. I don't know if it's five years, ten years, or twenty years. Robotics will take over everything — robots will be harvesting crops, they'll be building everything. More in the way of Star Trek than Star Wars. In Star Trek, they had replicators for food. They would replicate parts. They could go on a five-year mission and not be dependent on anything. All it took was massive amounts of energy. And that's our thing — we need huge amounts of energy for AI today. We're using a lot of water with AI today. That's why Musk is talking about putting data centres in space, because you have automatic cooling — water is used for cooling — and there you've got basically absolute zero. You can't get any colder than that. I think we're going to evolve into a society along the Star Trek line where people do what they like to do. I think in that transition, we're going to have a lot of trouble with drug abuse, alcohol abuse, any kind of abuse, because it's going to be a major change, and until we have two or three full generations that grow up in that, society is going to have a lot of churn.

Dave Graham: If I might throw one more thing at you here — is AI going to be our saviour? Is it going to fix all of mankind's great problems?

Jeff Shields: Well, there's a gentleman who used to be the AI director with Google, and back in 2010 when they were first working on AI, he came up with a paper that said AI would end civilization. Last year he had another paper come out — "What if AI could fix everything?" What if it could fix poverty? What if it could fix wars? What if it could fix anything? So I wrote a blog on that. I wasn't concerned about AI fixing societal problems. What I use AI for fixing is — we had a nightlight down the laundry room hall that at four o'clock in the morning started coming on. We're in bed. The dog's in bed with us. And the light is coming on. There's no motion — it's on a motion detector. This goes on for a couple of weeks and I can't figure it out. I changed it three times. Still happening. So I got up and sat down with AI and said, "I've got this nightlight that keeps coming on at four o'clock in the morning." So it says, "Okay, let's break this down. Motion detectors detect heat. Is there a draft? Well, it sits right above the baseboard heater." I know I changed the programming on the thermostat to keep it warmer at night. Well, because we've been getting cold nights, the heat has actually been coming on. So the rising heat wave was causing the nightlight to flicker. So I went through a number of discussions on it, and all I did was lower the thermostat at night and it stopped. That's how I use AI to fix everything. So when I'm coding for websites — I took my first programming course in 1966 — so I've been doing it for a very long time, and I'm fast. I'm faster now. It's amazing what you can do with it. There are issues still. You know, my wife's an artist, but I use AI to generate artwork for my blogs. Someone said, "Well, why do you do that? You've got an artist." So I wrote a blog on why I use AI to generate the images. It's because Susan can do a piece of art for it, but she's busy with her own artwork. She's busy with publishing a magazine. We both work out of the house. We both do housework. We both do all of that. But if I'm asking her to do my stuff, it's taking away from her stuff. So to respect her time and her effort, I use AI. What might take her a week — even if it only took her an hour — it's irrelevant. I can get AI to generate that image for me. Susan uses AI as a way to get ideas. She'll upload an image of a painting and tell it to suggest ten titles, but she doesn't necessarily use any of those titles. She might use part of one, but it gets her thinking in a direction. So it's a tool. It's like a hammer. It's like a screwdriver. You use it the proper way and you use it responsibly. I do a lot of writing on using AI responsibly. You don't want to plagiarize other people's work. You don't want to infringe on copyright. So I set rules up that prevent that. If you're going to generate content, do it right. So when I'm writing a blog, I'll discuss an idea and tell it stories that I want to tell — so they're my stories. And then I'll tell it to give an outline, and I'll run through the outline. We may do seven or eight iterations, but if I was doing that by hand and typing it all out, it would probably take me a week per blog. Now it takes me 20 minutes. So it will generate from my ideas and my wording — it will fill in the blanks. So if I give it point form, it uses that point form but converts it to a sentence. That is how I make use of it. I think it's the same way that the questions that I was sent for this interview were generated by Marilyn, and I can tell as I read the questions — they were taken from the context of my blogs. That is a great way to use it. We use it the same way for the magazine, or when we're doing interviews for the magazine — to generate questions for this person. Here's their blog; extract the information from the blog. It speeds things up. It speeds up doing good work. It also speeds up doing bad work. That is the catch, and a lot of people fall into it because they don't know how to frame the prompt. I actually have a little file that outlines a certain number of instructions for it to follow. Now, in the one that I pay for, that's in memory. But I'll copy that out of that one — the one that's in memory — and on the free ones where I don't pay, I don't get the benefit of memory. So I copy the memory and put it into a file that I can drop into my next conversation on a different model and say, "Follow these rules and do this." So I don't have to keep retyping it every time. I'm lazy, right. I had a boss once who called me lazy, and then after six months he said, "A truly lazy person always finds the easiest way, always finds the fastest way, and always does it right the first time." And that is my philosophy on life. I'm lazy — but I am truly lazy.

Dave Graham: I think that's wonderful. Thank you so much. I appreciate your time and expertise.

Peter McCully: Jeff Shields shedding light on AI — it's something that actually works for real people. If today's conversation has you at all curious, look for links in our show notes at thepulsecommunity.ca. Jeff will be speaking to groups across British Columbia. Worth checking out if you want to explore this fascinating topic.

Dave Graham: It feels like I've been given a key to a door I didn't even know existed. I'm going to go home and photograph everything in my pantry and then maybe order a pizza while I try to figure out how to make this incredible resource work for me. Wait — does it already know what I like to eat? Is it watching me now?

Peter McCully: Well, I don't think so, Dave. Hey folks, we're eager to share a new member of the Pulse community. It's Cindy Thompson of Parksville and her podcast, A Resilience Project. Through stories of resilience, we can discover the key elements that can move us from surviving to thriving. In the latest episode, Alvin Law shares the most remarkable story of human resilience. Born without arms as a result of the drug thalidomide, Alvin learned to use his feet as hands and went on to become an award-winning musician, mastering the trombone, drums, and piano. His message is simple but profound: don't just survive — exceed expectations.

Dave Graham: Oh my. That is the kind of story that puts everything in perspective. Whatever you may be struggling with today, Alvin Law reminds us of the extraordinary capacity of the human spirit.

Peter McCully: Parksville counsellors Joel Grenz and Sean Wood — the Nonpartisan Hacks — take listeners behind the scenes of municipal advocacy work that directly impacts Vancouver Island taxpayers.

Dave Graham: Joel and Sean bring a perspective that's honest, accessible, and actually pretty entertaining for something involving municipal budgets.

Peter McCully: Our Skookum Kid Stories feature Captain Dave and the crew of the Mellow Submarine, and Peter and Gracie, the Eskimo dog. Our kids' stories now offer colouring pages to go along with each new episode. This week's episode features Captain Dave and his first mate, Larry the Lobster, checking out the Barnacle Olympics off Gabriola Island.

Dave Graham: Barnacle Olympics, huh? Sounds a bit counterintuitive, but I bet it makes for a fun story. And then we have the Timeless Tales as featured in our Radio Archaeology Classic Radio series, with original episodes of Dragnet featuring Sergeant Joe Friday, and Marshal Matt Dillon in Gunsmoke.

Peter McCully: You'll find these podcasts and more at thepulsecommunity.ca. And while you're there, sign up for our weekly newsletter to keep up to date on the latest podcasts, guests, and contests.

Dave Graham: Yes, contests — a reminder of our new one for tickets to Sun Fest. Details coming soon through our Facebook page and on the website.

Peter McCully: So thanks for joining us here on The Pulse Community Podcast. Enjoy the onset of spring. Get out there and watch the herring run, and come on back for the next episode as we continue to feature the people and the stories of mid-Vancouver Island.

Dave Graham: I'm going to go home and photograph the contents of my fridge, but I actually have a feeling I already know what AI is going to suggest for dinner.

Peter McCully: Oh, what's that, Dave?

Dave Graham: Yes, it's going to tell me to finish the leftover pizza, and then maybe I could get AI to play a game of "Is This Safe to Eat?" or maybe a round of "What Food Was This?" Oh man, I've got to clean out my fridge. Hey Peter, I have a great idea and it will make you feel good.

Peter McCully: Well, I'm going to start off by just saying no.

Dave Graham: I don't do well with touching, seeing, or smelling foods that have gone off. So I was hoping you could clean my fridge for me.

Peter McCully: And I'm going to keep saying no.

Dave Graham: But think of lowering your cortisol levels. Helping me will help you. Dave, maybe you could ask AI what it thinks my answer will be. Would it be no? Hey, Peter — where are you going? I can sweeten the deal. Leftover pizza, all you can eat. Peter!

Rockin' Rhonda & The Uptown Blues Band: Here comes Peter, here comes Dave — oh, listen. Bringing stories, making waves. No missing. Spinning tales in the podcast cave, so to speak. Laughs and insights everywhere — what a treat. Peter and Dave, they're on the mics. All right, join the ride. It's gonna feel just right.