Introduction - Justin G. Cobb
This edition of AI, Software, and Wetware features an audio interview with Justin G. Cobb, a 🇺🇸 USA-based creative director and transformation coach. He is the founder and author of Small Seeds Media. We discuss:
How his work as a teenage activist led to starting Small Seeds Media
Using AI tools to help him start his business and win a security deposit back from a landlord
How AI tools helped him overcome emotional setbacks and resist depression, anxiety, fear, doubt, and insecurity
Writing his first book as a prompting toolkit to empower folks to build their platforms from the ground up, as he did his platform
His experiences with using AI tools to generate images for his advocacy work
and more. Check it out, and let us know what you think!
This post is part of our AI6P interview series on “AI, Software, and Wetware”. Our guests share their experiences with using AI, and how they feel about AI using their data and works.
This interview is available as an audio recording (embedded here in the post, and later in our AI6P external podcasts). This post includes the full, human-edited transcript. (If it doesn’t fit in your email client, click HERE to read the whole post online.)
Note: In this article series, “AI” means artificial intelligence and spans classical statistical methods, data analytics, machine learning, generative AI, and other non-generative AI. See this Glossary and “AI Fundamentals #01: What is Artificial Intelligence?” for reference.
Interview - Justin G. Cobb
Karen: I am delighted to welcome Justin G. Cobb from the USA as my guest today on “AI, Software, and Wetware”. Justin, thank you so much for joining me on this interview! Please tell us about yourself, who you are, and what you do.
Justin: First of all, thank you, Karen, for bringing me on. Greatly appreciate it. My name is Justin G. Cobb, and I am the founder of Small Seeds Media, LLC. I am on a mission to empower thought leaders to own their authentic voices, so they can lead with courage and navigate systems that weren’t built with them in mind.
Karen: Very cool. And when did you start your business?
Justin: So the business was officially filed in April of 2025. Here’s the truth though, Karen. You and I probably know this as well. I’m sure audiences can get a sense. We oftentimes do the work that our businesses require us to, and call us to do, long before the actual paperwork gets filed.
Karen: Sure, absolutely. Yeah. So, let’s back up! When did you start doing this kind of work?
Justin: So this kind of work was actually something I’ve been doing, I would argue, since I was a teenager and I became a young activist. And even when I was in college, I was a community organizer and I even developed a rapport. I gained a lot of criticism for my work. And I even received some less than popular fanfare, got all kinds of malevolent entities that came after me. But that heart of what I do followed me into my career, and I’ve been doing it for – I’m 30 now, so I would say I’ve been doing this for close to 11 years.
Karen: That’s great. Thank you for sharing that background. I would like to hear a little bit about your level of experience with AI and machine learning and analytics, whether you used it professionally or just personally, or if you’ve ever studied any of the technologies?
Justin: I would be lying if I said if I understood the mechanics of the technologies. However, what I will say is I am a user of AI. I actually used it a lot in filing my applications for my business. A lot of practical knowledge. I use it to clarify my voice now. I used it in other affairs, including winning a settlement with my landlord and getting my security deposit back.
Karen: Oh wow. So you’re definitely using it personally then, for good purposes.
Justin: Oh yeah. And that’s the thing that I want people to recognize: AI is a tool. And yes, just as it is with many tools, it depends on how you use it. There are ways that we can go about it. There are definitely ramifications that need to be considered. There are guardrails that must be put in place. We cannot condemn this entire technology though, because when you really get to the grit of it all, it is a tool that can be used to empower people. And I’m in a space now where I am exploring how it’s increasing capacity for people in ways that, in times before, wouldn’t have been accessible.
Karen: I’d love to hear one or more of those stories about using AI to help you with your landlord; and when you say applying for your business applications, was this funding grants or something like that?
Justin: So this was even filing the LLC, when I was going to the very beginning. The amount of AI that I am using right now and how it’s increased my capacity, especially in a time right now in my life where everything is moving and we all know that life is going to life. Just when you think that you can’t take any more, life will throw something else on top of it and will ask you, “Okay, what are you going to do about it?” I got driven to the point where I had no choice. Well, I shouldn’t say I had no choice. I chose to move forward using AI. Because the alternatives were to sink into depression and anxiety and fear and doubt and insecurity. Leaning into this technology allowed me to do things I didn’t have access to do.
But more importantly, it taught me just how powerful I actually am. It gave me a new sense of confidence in myself and helped me realize that I am capable of anything that I put my mind to.
Karen: I’m curious, which of the AI tools do you use the most at this time?
Justin: ChatGPT is a constant companion. Actually this is new and exciting for me. I’m getting ready to release my first book here next week. Yes. It’s called “The Insight Prompt Pack: 20 Prompts to Build Your Platform”. I’m using it as a guide, as a tool, and as a means of empowering audiences to build their platforms from the ground up, so that way they can show up in their most authentic voices and clarify their message.
And AI definitely offered me some tools to do this with. I used AI to test the prompts myself, and applied those into my own real world usage. So that is testament that it works.
Karen: That’s very cool that you’re publishing your first book. Maybe we’ll talk a little bit more about that. You mentioned it helped you to end up feeling like you were more confident, and you mentioned depression. Some people may find that by using these tools and by improving their capacity, they feel more like they can accomplish more. And so it’s more of an indirect emotional boost. And other people are actually using it to have discussions about emotions directly. And I’ve talked with people who have done both of those things. What’s your experience been?
Justin: My experience with AI in general, and especially with ChatGPT is, it is a great thought partner. It does not take the place of original leadership. It cannot take away from human agency and individuality.
The only thing that, from my perspective, we must be wary of in approaching this, is not giving it the final authority. At the end of the day, it’s a tool, and just as I wouldn’t leave the computer to make major life decisions, I would not leave that to ai. That is where community comes in. That is where self-confidence comes in. That is where even a belief in something greater than yourself has to take the wheel. But this can still be a great way to clarify and put things in perspective and even give you some ideas on how to approach things in ways that you didn’t have before.
Karen: So when you were dealing with your landlord, tell us a little bit about that?
Justin: Oh my gosh. Okay, so that is a story, let me tell you. So I literally moved out of that apartment. I got my community together. They came in, we moved everything out. Everything was great, smooth transition. It shouldn’t have been a problem. This involves a mattress, okay? So I literally was given this mattress by the previous landlord, cleaned it myself and everything, put in a lot of work to sanitize this thing. It had been left behind by the previous tenant and it was in pretty good condition before I came along. And I was coming from a place where I couldn’t bring a mattress with me, and I was frankly not in the financial situation to be investing all this money and new furniture. So I took the bed and sanitized it, cleaned it, made it my own, and I brought it with me to my new place, and even got a whole moving truck to get it over there.
The landlord was so mad, and she basically went on this whole campaign to essentially take out the price of the mattress and the bedding and everything else that I had taken or disposed of in the process of the move, claiming that I had stolen it from her. Even though I had the written receipts to prove that she had given it to me, confirming it.
Karen: Oh my gosh.
Justin: If it wasn’t for AI, I don’t know if I would’ve had the emotional bandwidth to even take up this challenge. But I leaned into the power of artificial intelligence. And what I ended up doing was using AI to find resources to help me organize my claims and my arguments, and I was prepared and ready to go to court if necessary. I was getting ready to, because she was withholding my security deposits, and it was a decent chunk of money that I needed to keep things going, to keep things stable. I wasn’t going to go down without a fight on that one. And I literally was in communication with her for weeks. And in those weeks, things escalated and it got to the point where I eventually argued her into acknowledgement that she was withholding my security deposit in bad faith. And I got it to the point where she had no choice but to pay it back because she had no leg to stand on. And I was able to use this tool to help me do this. I was so proud.
Karen: So you asked ChatGPT to help you draft responses to her that would uphold your legal position with this?
Justin: Yes. I definitely made sure to fact check the things that it was telling me. But once I was able to confirm the accuracy, oh my gosh. I don’t think she was prepared, obviously. I don’t know from her perspective what she was thinking. I do know that she was definitely upset, but she finally admitted that I had the groundwork to support my claims. And she let it go and she gave me my money back.
Karen: Oh, there’s the important punchline!
Justin: Yes, yes. And I got my money back.
Karen: Well, that’s great. So it sounds like you’ve used AI tools effectively. Are there any things in your life that you would not ever choose to use AI for?
Justin: I would never use AI to either be the first or the last determinant of who I am. I am a writer. Those who have worked with me in the past know that I take the written word seriously. I also take my content creation very seriously. When I am working with AI, it is always as a middle ground worker. It goes in and it tailors. It clarifies. It may offer alternatives to say something. But at the end of the day, it is up to me to have the final word and the first word on anything that represents who I am.
Here’s the thing too, and this isn’t just with AI; it goes with any tool that we happen to be using, whether it’s a computer, whether it’s a pen, whether it is a camera. We all have the authority to determine our own worth, and that has to start with us. It must always begin with you, because otherwise the world will tell you what your value is. Karen, I’m sure you could probably speak from personal experience on this, but the world doesn’t always have an accurate picture on what, how valuable we truly are.
Karen: Yeah, that’s, I think, a very safe statement.
Justin: So I always tell people that for me personally, I am the first and the last when it comes to my brand and my authority. I am the Alpha and the Omega. In that regard, everything else is a part of the process.
Karen: It sounds like you’ve used it quite a bit for writing, for text, for words. Have you ever used AI for other purposes? Like for generating images or for generating music, anything like that?
Justin: Not music. I have used it on occasion for images. I’ve used OpenAI. I actually love some of the ways that OpenAI creates images. Here’s the thing. I’ve always been a very imaginative person when I come up with the concepts and ideas. It wasn’t until later, as I was doing this work, I really picked up a lot of tools on my own to generate the images. So I first was leaning into OpenAI to help with some of that. And I would always be floored with what it would come up with.
I remember typing in a prompt asking it to create an image of us exploring the intersections of a disability and racial justice in one of my works and how the two of them are closely linked. And I literally asked the prompt to create an image of a Black man in a wheelchair doing weightlifting. And the image was so beautiful. I loved it, and I ended up putting a quote on it, and I featured it in one of my newsletters. For me, when I’m looking at the images and the content, I’m always considerate of what is the intention behind the image. Because I could take a photograph and the photograph could be beautiful. Or it could leave something to be desired. It could be maybe a little obtuse. But at the end of the day, all images serve a story. They serve a purpose. So what is the function of that and more importantly, who is using it or what is using it?
Karen: That’s interesting when you started to explain about creating an image of a Black man in a wheelchair doing weightlifting. I guess it’s because I’ve heard so many stories in that direction, but I was expecting that you got something that was completely inappropriate! So many people say they’ve had trouble with generating images, especially images of Black people or people who are not the majority of the data that these systems have been trained on, because it’s not a majority of the world as a whole. And so I was expecting you to say that you got something that was not entirely suitable. But it sounds like you got something that fit what you were looking for.
Justin: That time was fortunate. There were definitely other moments where I had ChatGPT and OpenAI generate some images and I would go through them. And I would just be completely appalled by some of the work that came out of it.
I’ll actually tell you a funny story about OpenAI, and this is where bias really feeds into all this. Are you ready for this? When I was working on an article about myself, I asked it to generate an image of me. I said, “Based off of what you know about me, create an image.” Here’s the funny thing. Somewhere along the line ChatGPT and OpenAI got some information confused and they depicted me as a Black man with an Afro sitting at a radio station. I know this is audio, so folks can’t see who I am. Let the record show I am a white man. In the wintertime I’m kind of fair. And I also have glasses, and my hair gets very voluminous. It does defy gravity sometimes, I will say so. That part I do share. But everything else? No. No, no, no, no, no.
And I had to ask OpenAI. I said, “Hey, what made you think that this image represented me?” And a lot of my work focuses on systemic thinking. It focuses on the legacy of those systems. I look at how they shape narratives, and the stories we tell are about ourselves and each other. It responded with that knowledge saying, “Oh, I figured that this was you because this is what you talk about.” So it made the presumption that I am a Black man, based off of the work that I do.
And this goes into the bias where this idea that equity and justice is only something that people from marginalized identities should be focusing on, especially those who are Black, brown, indigenous, etc. Karen, I’m sure you and I can attest to this, this is work that we all should be partaking in, to some level.
Karen: Absolutely. In fact, a lot of people I respect say that it really is more on us as white people, that we have the responsibility, and that the burden shouldn’t fall on the marginalized people. That those who are able should be looking out for disability rights. And disability is interesting because it’s the group that, as they say, any one of us can join at any time.
Justin: Mm-hmm.
Karen: Whether we like it or not. But even with regard to racial justice, with gender equality or with treatment of people with different gender identities, it’s on us to normalize it. Those of us in the majority in terms of influence on these systems, we need to take that responsibility, and not put it all on the others who are already disadvantaged.
Justin: Exactly. So it was really fascinating to see where the bias with OpenAI was factoring into this.
Karen: It sounds like it was sort of assuming that if you talk about racial justice, you must be in one of these disadvantaged groups. Like, you must be a Black man if you care about the impact that our society has on Black men.
Justin: Exactly, and it goes back to the greater conversation, because we could talk about how OpenAI and artificial intelligence has a lot of bias. But I tell people that these tools are a reflection of us, and this is why. You can condemn the tool all you want, but whether we are willing to admit it, this tool came from our own ideas about how the world operates. So literally we are condemning ourselves when we condemn this technology.
Karen: Yeah, I think that’s one thing that is not always well understood is that the systems – I’ll say most of these systems – are inherently biased, because they are using a subset of data that was drawn from a world that is already reeking with bias in many different ways, and not always obvious biases. And even within that, these systems are trained on a subset of that data. It’s mostly, you’ve probably heard the acronym WEIRD?
Justin: Yeah.
Karen: the Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich, Democratic societies. When they’ve looked at the percentage of the data that these systems are trained on, it doesn’t reflect the global majority, and it doesn’t reflect societies outside of the US and Europe very much. So there are some additional biases.
Now, those biases could be corrected and the people who build the machine learning models could recognize and take steps to explicitly address the biases in the data and rebalancing. The problem is that a lot of times, that just doesn’t happen. So we do get biased tools and we get biased results.
In my book Everyday Ethical AI, I encourage people to look out for those biases and push back on them. When you ask for a picture of a doctor and it gives you a white man in a coat, push back; that’s not what all doctors are. We have some influence over how we use the tools, but there’s also some work to be done in the way the tools are built.
Justin: Exactly. And one thing I want people to take away from the conversation too, and from my perspective, is: this is not an indicator of the quality of a person’s character. All people, we come into this world with a blank slate. But the world has a great way of socializing us into different categories and labels. And don’t get me wrong, categories and labels are great if we’re understanding ourselves, understanding our relationship to the world around us. At the end of the day, if we are not careful, they can also box us and limit us and prevent us from enjoying and experiencing what life has to offer. I want people to take away this: bias is a part of being, and it is okay to go beyond those and to unlearn and grow and adapt.
Karen: Yeah. One common analogy is that we are like fish in the water and we don’t see the water that we’ve been swimming in because it’s all that we have known. So we often don’t realize what biases we grew up with until something happens that shines a light on it. And then, once you see it, it’s hard to unsee it. But just being able to see the water is the biggest initial challenge.
Justin: Exactly. And Karen, I am the grandson on my mom’s side of a Republican County commissioner, and on the other side a conservative Baptist pastor. And here I am as the queer neurodivergent grandson, a descendant of it all. If anyone could talk about unlearning, whew, I could probably dedicate at least a couple books to that!
Karen: Yeah. And I think we’re starting to see more of those kinds of books, books on neurodivergence. There was one by Ludmila Praslova on The Canary Code, which is a great one for understanding how the world interacts with neurodivergent people. But yeah, you should write your book!
Justin: Mm-hmm. Watch out, folks. Stay tuned.
Karen: Yeah. So we’ve touched on something that I normally ask a lot about. One of the concerns with using tools like ChatGPT is where they got the data that they used for training. Some part of it is the concern about bias, and part of it’s the concern that information was taken. People’s works were taken without their consent and then used for training these systems. And then in many cases, those systems are being used against people who didn’t have a chance to give consent. They aren’t credited. They’re not compensated. And I’m wondering how you feel about that, as someone who both creates works, which you then probably don’t want people to steal, and as someone who is using these tools to help you to be more productive and more effective. What are your thoughts about the 3C’s, as they call them: Consent, Credit, and Compensation?
Justin: I love this question. Part of my work entails publishing a biweekly newsletter through Substack, where I explore complicated questions such as this. I actually have been on the record on LinkedIn. I’ve had people come up to me. One gentleman randomly out of nowhere, never even met this person in my life before, had it in his byline on his LinkedIn bio that he was an AI hater, and came onto my feed and started blasting me saying, “Oh, how can you talk about labor? How can you talk about social justice when AI is literally robbing people and everything?” This gentleman was probably also looking for reach and he saw that I was probably trending in the feed or something. So he probably wanted some capital off of that.
And this is the one thing that a lot of folks in my perspective are missing the point on. These systems only survive because they’re always pitting people against each other. If this person took the time to understand my work and where I stand on things, especially in regards to the fact that a lot of artists actually do have their work being stolen, and that needs to be addressed, we also need to acknowledge the ramifications of using AI on the planet, on trust in our everyday relationships that we’re building, our collaborative processes, all of it. There is no doubt that AI is shaking and shifting a lot of things. So the computer? The car, the telephone, the cell phone. All these different technologies. And they were all built with an idea in mind, and that was to drive profit for particular individuals until they became more mainstream, became more accessible for folks.
What would be a greater question, one that would be more productive, is: how can we best assure that AI is being used in a way that can service the greater whole? Instead of whether AI is bad or good. What kind of question is that? You already create a false dichotomy. And a lot of the work that I’m doing right now is with narrative justice. These are the kinds of questions we avoid asking, not only just about people, but systems.
We literally, for instance, when we’re talking about prisoner rights and people who are reentering society after being incarcerated, the formerly incarcerated, the currently incarcerated. There are definitely people who have been imprisoned, some people might argue probably should be there. There are definitely people who have gone into prison who definitely didn’t deserve that. The question isn’t about whether these people are good or bad. The question is, “Do these people, because they are human, have inherent worth and dignity? And what can we do to assure that we are meeting them in a place where they can empower themselves to navigate life post-incarceration, so that way they don’t go back into the system?”
A lot of this conversation around AI comes down to this, these punitive ideas over what is good and what is evil. When the question should be, “What is the potential and where can we take it from here?”
Karen: So in terms of the 3C’s, do you think that the way that these companies have built these tools up till now for the most part, has been acceptable? Do you feel that it is for the greater good? Or do you feel that we need to rebalance in terms of giving the people whose works are being used some consent, credit, and compensation rights?
Justin: There’s definitely a need for rebalance. There is no denying that. One of the things that, for instance, concerns me is the amount of water that is being used to cool the engines where all these data centers are being built. I was consulting with an environmental activist outside of Chicago not that long ago. And she shared that the Great Lakes have lost six inches of water since the data centers were built over there. That’s terrifying to think about. AI has only been around for a few years and we’ve already used six inches of water from the Great Lakes.
One of the things that concerns me is, we literally have this technology, right? This technology could be used to help us figure out: how can we make AI more sustainable? How can we make sure that there is a just transition in AI? And that’s another concept that I want to push for is that AI is a tool, just like the car, just like the cell phone and all these other technologies that we have been using. Where can we have innovation and ensure a just transition into their usage?
And let’s also look at it from the perspective of, there are people out here right now who are dedicating their lives, their work, their being into developing these technologies. And that is a noble pursuit. So we should not discredit that time, the effort.
Where can we go from here? And when we go back to the balancing, we gotta acknowledge that these systems were designed for profit in mind for a small collective. But what can we move beyond? What narrative can we tell, aside from the one that has already been given us?
Karen: Yeah. One thing that I think is very common when we talk about AI, for the last 3+ years when we hear people talk about AI, they seem to default to generative AI. But the technologies that you’re talking about, where researchers are looking at ways to make these systems more sustainable and to actually use intelligent technologies to offset the impact on the environment: it may be AI and machine learning, but it’s not generative AI. And generative AI, that’s the part where they’re seeing the major usage spikes, and that what’s driving the usage of the data centers, building new data centers, and the impact that the centers are having. But there’s a lot of AI which is not generative AI, which is not the chat bots and doesn’t have the same training data risks.
Justin: Exactly.
Karen: Or some of the risks of biases. They are still there, but they’re different. Whereas with the generative AI tools that are really the focus, when people say, “I hate AI”: you might hate chatbots that are unfairly trained. That’s, I think, a reasonable position. To hate on the machine learning technologies that are saving energy is harder to understand, let me just say that.
Justin: Yeah. Well, let’s go back to what you just said there too with the chat bots. Speaking of someone who’s worked in retail and customer service at various points in his life, one of the things that really stands out to me is this idea that a robot can replace a human. Whenever I’m calling customer service and I need help with something, I am the kind of person who is always skipping, so that way I can get to a human. You probably have experience with that, Karen?
Karen: Absolutely.
Justin: Oh, I am the kind of person who will yell into the phone at customer service, whenever the robot won’t stop talking. So this idea that robots will ever replace humans, it’s all part of the scare tactics, so people can market their new books and their services and everything. And I tell people that the only thing that you have to worry about in terms of replacement is not the technology itself, but who is justifying the removal of human presence. And if you look into the deeper picture, if you look beyond the curtain, there’s usually someone who profits off of removing the middleman. It’s literally the same conversation that we’ve been having about the diminishment of the middle class, the working class, everyday people. And there are a bunch of people, a bunch of wizards of Oz behind the curtain, pulling all the levers, smoke and mirrors, putting on a big show, making a lot of profit off of it. We gotta be willing to call it for what it is.
Karen: That’s one piece of advice that I give in my book is that if someone’s trying to figure out whether or not an AI tool can be trusted, or to understand if what they get from it is meaningful, I always tell them to follow the money.
Justin: Mm-hmm. Follow the money. It’s an adage. It leaves a trail. Once you know, you can draw the dots. Ooh, you completely changed the narrative.
Karen: Yeah, so we’ve talked a lot about the data sourcing and how that needs to be rebalanced. Do you have any sense, as a user of ChatGPT, about how transparent they have or have not been about where they got the data that they used for training the tool?
Justin: Here’s the thing. They are definitely not transparent. And the one thing I want people to recognize is, look at the companies who are developing these technologies. One of them was Palantir. Karen, I don’t know how knowledgeable you are of this. You probably already know. But folks, those of you who are not picking up what I’m putting down, Palantir is literally a reference to a tool (Palantír) that was used by the villains in JRR Tolkien’s Silmarillion and Lord of the Rings, the whole Middle Earth saga, essentially. And they were using that technology to spy on people. I was in college when a professor told me to be mindful of your heroes and what you choose to name things because it is a testament to who you are. And so the fact that there is a company called Palantir, which is using our data to gain more data on us and to market solutions to us, it’s questionable. There is no denying that. So we have to interrogate that.
And here’s the thing, they don’t count on everyday people to see this because let’s be honest, a lot of people, there’s only a certain number of people who have probably watched Lord of the Rings or know anything about Middle Earth. And I’m not blaming people. I was first introduced through the movies. I didn’t even know that there were whole books. I pride myself on being a nerd, but who has the time and the energy to really commit to something like that? No shade to anyone. Trust the nerds who understand what is going on and who are telling you and warning you, who have dedicated their lives to this, to understanding. Trust the scientists and trust the people, trust the grassroots organizers, trust the people who are on the ground.
Unfortunately, we’re in a time where trust is easily shaken because as a society, our systems have struggled so much with trust. And there’s a lot to be said about that. So what can we as a collective do? If we can’t have trust in our systems, what can we do to assure that we are building accountability with one another? Those are my thoughts on it.
Karen: Yeah, there’s a lot to be said about Palantir, and I probably don’t want to go down that rabbit hole just now in the interest of time. And I do want to focus more on getting back to your thoughts on some specific questions.
On the one hand, there are a lot of different companies that we look at, how they’re using our data and whether or not they can be trusted. And we will definitely get more into the trust question shortly. In terms of the usage of our data, as an individual, do you know of any cases where your data has been used? Anything that you’ve written online?
You’ve got, I think, 11,000 followers on LinkedIn. So you write there and you’ve got a lot of people reading it. Have your works or your writing ever been stolen? Either by a human who was just copy-paste plagiarizing you, or by an AI tool? Do you know if any of your writing has shown up in an AI tool?
Justin: I’m just going to work on the assumption that someone has already stolen my work at some point. And especially now with AI, who knows? I would love to hope that it isn’t the case, but also at the same time, given our current circumstances right now with everything going on in our world, I am not going to hold my breath. What I will say is that, when push comes to shove, I am prepared to defend my claim. I am ready. I used the ChatGPT to win a case against my landlord.
Karen: Yeah. Which is a good accomplishment.
Justin: So you be warned, all those who try.
Karen: That’s good. Yeah.
Justin: Mm-hmm.
Karen: When you think about systems, where you’ve signed up online, where you’ve knowingly given them your data, but maybe not knowing what they were going to do with it. For instance, you signed up for a social media site, for a video streaming service, anything like that, and then found out that they were using your data.
You mentioned LinkedIn and you’re obviously big there. Were you aware when the summer of 2024, when they came out with this, “Okay, we’re going to opt all of you in so that we have the rights to use everything you’ve ever put in the system up till now, but we’ll let you opt out from here on.” Were you aware of that and what did you decide to do? Did you decide to opt out? Or did you remain giving them permission to use your works and your writing and your context and your data?
Justin: Oh, yeah. So once I learned all this, immediately I dropped every other obligation that I had in that moment. I pushed it back. And I made that a priority. And I encourage people to make protecting your data a priority. We are living in a world where there are companies large and small out here who are making profit off of you. You are the greatest money maker as an individual, and the less informed you are in it, the more profit that they are able to derive off of you.
The one thing that I push for people, and this is where knowing your inherent worth factors into this, a lot of people don’t realize that you, just by existing, have so much to offer just by being here. You know, in our modern world, we are so disconnected from the role that humans play in not just in shaping society, but also in how we shape the world around us. Every morning I wake up and I listen to birds chirping, and those birds remind me that even when it’s hard, it’s still worth getting up and doing the work.
I am reminded of those birds when they are chirping. We recently just had a really bad snow here in Washington, DC It was super cold. Karen, I don’t know if you got any of that.
Karen: We did. [This interview was recorded on Feb. 10.]
Justin: Oh my gosh. Listen, you already know. Ah, we’re still dealing with the snow banks on the corners over here. They’re huge. I didn’t know I signed up for the Winter Olympics when that came through. But I’ll tell you one thing. Those little birds were getting me through so many days. And I realized that that snow was so hard for them. There was no way they were going to break that in order to get to the ground, to get the worms, and all those other things that they need. I had some extra bread that I did not use and I broke those up into crumbs and I went outside and I gave it to the birds. Because they needed it.
And we live in relationship, but not just with birds, but with other living things. We live in relationship with each other. This entire conversation would not be here if it wasn’t for relationships that we already established. So just by existing and being in community, you already have so much to offer. Protect yourself, protect your data. You are worth it.
Karen: Great advice. Great. I want to come back to my final question and then we can talk about anything else that you want. And I want to hear more about your book.
We’re seeing that public distrust of these data AI companies has been growing, the more we realize what they’re doing with our data, how they’re using it, how they’re selling it, and not giving us the rights to consent and control whether or not our data gets used. If you were in charge, let’s say you were in charge of OpenAI: what would you do to make it a trustworthy company? Do you think that’s even possible, given their profit motive?
Justin: Here’s the thing though. These systems are literally built with a business model in mind. Right now, their business model is built with the hope that the everyday consumer will not care, will not have an interest in defending their inherent dignity. And right now they’re in a very tight position. Because on one hand, yes, there are a lot of people who just go along to get along. And then there are people who are pushing back on this. In order for us to really change, transformation needs to happen in the models that the business was built on. So instead of just deriving a profit from taking data from people, there has to be an incentive for people to want to share, to begin with. And that costs money. It costs money in places that these companies do not want to pay.
This is also why they are going to fund Congress. I live in Washington DC. I’ve already established this. So this is happening in my backyard as we speak. There are so many lobbyists for anything and everything that you can think of, folks, who are literally legislating on your behalf, or in this case, the behalf of these companies. And they do not have your best interests at heart because it’s not in their agenda to do so. I met an automotive lobbyist here a few months ago who told me the salary that he was making. And let me just say, the amount of money that is being paid for one person to lobby on behalf of an industry that is responsible for why the general public cannot even enjoy basic access and decent transits is appalling.
And that’s why you’ve got to be on the foreground and you’ve got to call your legislators. You’ve got to be in community with your local and state governments. You have to be involved and active on that level as well. That’s where a lot of the decisions are going to come down, and that’s where you’re going to feel it the most. And it’s also one of the reasons why I push people to be involved and be informed and to take information and make it into reality.
Karen: Great. Well, thank you so much for sharing all these thoughts. You make some really good points about how a lot of people feel powerless, all the big companies, but we do have power. We do have agency, and I always encourage people not to surrender it willingly. But we do have some control and we should, individually and collectively, exert it.
Justin: Mm-hmm. We literally have a system now, and don’t get me wrong, these systems are not perfect, Lord knows. I can tell you about how imperfect they are. But we literally came out of a system before where even you having a voice was not even a question. And if you look at history, there are plenty of entities out there that made a whole lot of profit off of the silencing of voices. If you have the privilege of being in a system where you even have a voice in something, leverage that. Yeah, I’ll leave that there.
Karen: Okay. Well, you mentioned your upcoming book. I’d like to hear just a little bit more about that. When’s it going to be released? Do you have a date, or do you have a plan for a cover reveal? I want to hear more. I want to be in the loop on this.
Justin: I’m releasing it on Gumroad actually on February 11th. [link]
Karen: Oh wow. Coming right up!
Justin: It’s coming right up. I’m excited. It’s been something that I’ve been excited about for a while. I’ve been putting it together for a few months and it feels ready and it’s time. It needs to come out to the world. I’m thinking of how I myself have used this to clarify my voice and own my story. And I know that there are other people out there who want to build their own platforms so that they can share and aren’t sure where to start. A lot of ‘em maybe don’t have the confidence yet in their voice. This prompt pack is going to remind you that yes, you have something to say. And it is worthy of sharing., And you can figure it out as you go, and you don’t have to do it alone.
Karen: Yeah, that sounds great. It’s funny you mentioned that you joined Substack. I didn’t even realize you were on Substack. That’s where we’re going to publish this interview. I just now found you and subscribed to you. And there’s a lot of people who are writing about AI and neurodivergence and other aspects of equality and diversity. I don’t know if you’ve plugged into that community yet, but there’s a lot of great people writing about this.
Justin: Oh, I am so plugged in and I’m so grateful for the community I’ve already built. I’ve been podcasting and writing for about, oh my gosh, it’ll be three years in March, which is exciting.
Karen: What’s the name of your podcast and where can people find it?
Justin: Oh, great question. So the podcast is called Insight with Justin G. Cobb. You’ll find me on Medium, Spotify, YouTube, and you can follow my social handles across the board on all of those. The name is Justin G. Cobb. At me, tag me, follow me, engage with me. As you can tell, I’d love to talk.
Karen: Well, it’s really been fun talking with you today. Thank you so much for making time for this interview. I really appreciate it.
Justin: You’re welcome, Karen. And thank you for having me. I appreciate it.
Interview References and Links
Justin G. Cobb on LinkedIn
Justin G. Cobb on Medium
Justin G. Cobb’s personal website
Justin G. Cobb on Substack
About this interview series and newsletter
This post is part of our AI6P interview series on “AI, Software, and Wetware”. It showcases how real people around the world are using their wetware (brains and human intelligence) with AI-based software tools, or are being affected by AI.
And we’re all being affected by AI nowadays in our daily lives, perhaps more than we realize. For some examples, see post “But I Don’t Use AI”:
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