UnHacked - Cybersecurity Made Simple for Small Businesses

Justin Shelley (00:11)
So what, this time I dance and you don't? Like I got all self conscious because I introduced it and then I got I introduced it, I get shy, you guys dance, and then I feel bad. So I'm like, I better join in this time and you leave me hanging. God damn it.

Mario Zaki (00:23)
I sorry,

I just got an alert as soon as as soon as you hit record I I I look down.

Justin Shelley (00:29)
You're supposed to turn off your alerts before don't you have an SOP on recording these things?

Mario Zaki (00:34)
I I do, but it was like it's on Vibrate, but I just happened to look down and and I saw it.

Justin Shelley (00:41)
All right, well,

we're jumping in. Welcome everybody to episode 105 of Unhacked. I am Justin Shelley, CEO of Phoenix IT Advisors, joined here by my ever faithful, loyal, good friend, Mario. Mario, say hi, tell everybody who you are.

Mario Zaki (00:57)
What's up guys? Mario Zaki, CEO of Mastec IT, Justin's right hand man. located in beautiful New Jersey, cloudy today, but you know, still beautiful. And you know, we help small to medium-sized businesses stay safe and help business owners sleep better at night, knowing that their business will be there the next day.

Justin Shelley (01:20)
And y have you heard the saying or term or expression pictures where it didn't happen? All

Mario Zaki (01:27)
Yes.

Justin Shelley (01:28)
right. Well, send me some pictures of this beautiful place you live.

Mario Zaki (01:30)
Ha ha ha

Justin Shelley (01:33)
I'm just kidding. No, I I came over, so where I live, it's it's very rural where I'm at right now. Boy, that didn't come out right. Rural. That's a hard word to say. I sound like an idiot. Anyway, so I come over the pass. There's the city, and then you have to go over this mountain pass and out to where I live, which is

Very sparse. I'm on forty acres out, you know, with BLM land. not every state has that. So we're surrounded on three sides. Nobody can ever move in. It's just a clear shot to the mountains. It's gorgeous. anyways, I come over this pass and I just look out at the the development and I just thought, you know, humans make the world ugly. So that's

Mario Zaki (02:09)
yeah.

Justin Shelley (02:09)
what's on my mind is you're like, I'm like, Mario, send me pictures of this beauty you're talking about.

Mario Zaki (02:16)
And I I I mean you're saying you you you have forty acres. You know, we my house is I think it's about a third of an acre. A third of one acre. Yeah, it's a

Justin Shelley (02:26)
That's decent though, honestly.

Mario Zaki (02:28)
n it's a decent size, but I'll tell you the prices around here i

Justin Shelley (02:33)
yeah. Yeah.

Mario Zaki (02:34)
it's is crazy.

Justin Shelley (02:36)
Well, my previous home, we didn't measure the yard in acres at all. It was in square feet and it was, I think, less than the house itself. the available property. So it was terrible. I I I like the I like the country. I love where I live. anyways, Mario, we are shifting gears. The last two episodes, you know, it was doom and gloom first. The world's gonna end. We kept hearing that.

And

we we talked about that for a full episode. And then I came back with my tinfoil hat on. And I'm like, they're lying to us. It's all horse shit. and then before that episode even published, before we'd even aired our own episode, I was so pissed because everybody else started saying it. I'm like, God damn it, I should have published ours faster. because

Mario Zaki (03:19)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (03:20)
now it's all I see on social media is everybody like, they're full of shit. They don't want to slow down, they're not gonna slow anything down. so I think

Mario Zaki (03:26)
Yeah. Yeah, we knew we knew it was just some

smoke.

Justin Shelley (03:31)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (03:32)
Smoking mirrors, I mean.

Justin Shelley (03:34)
so today instead of the doom and gloom, instead of the conspiracy theories, instead of honestly talking about anybody else at all, I wanna talk about what AI is doing in our lives for good. And I think there's a lot of stuff when we focus because this show by nature is focused on negative. It is what are the bad things out there that can help us or harm us so that we can protect against them. And I wanna change gears today and and

Listen, it honestly it might be a short episode. Although every time I say that it ends up being like longer than normal. but I want to talk about the positives of of AI. And that's where we're gonna start. This is the whole introduction. no outline as is becoming usual. We're just gonna kick this thing off and I'm gonna start. And Mario, you are a football fan, yes? What?

Mario Zaki (04:22)
But hold on. Very,

very huge football fan. But you we're we're you said we're gonna go positive, but what you failed to mention is what those previous episodes have broken records, you know, for our viewing audience. Yeah. So now I think we're gonna plummet again because we're we're back to being positive.

Justin Shelley (04:36)
I know I did forget to say that. We're gonna tank.

Nobody wants good news. Nobody wants good news.

Mario Zaki (04:45)
No.

Justin Shelley (04:45)
They want to know Doom and Gloom. And yeah, we did. We we broke records on our downloads with the doom and gloom episodes. come on, guys. And that's that's the point of today. It's like, all right, fine, drop off if you want, audience, but like once in a while, let's just smile and look around and think, hey, life's not all that all that bad.

Don't worry, next week we'll come back and we'll tell you how bad it is. That's not a problem. We're here for it. Today, Mario, I, with the use of AI, have joined the world of fantasy football. React.

Mario Zaki (05:17)
Nice. Nice. I've always wanted to be

Justin Shelley (05:21)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (05:21)
on a football podcast. I think we need to pivot.

Justin Shelley (05:26)
I mean let me finish my thought before you pursue that course because my my team name is called the loophole. And

Mario Zaki (05:37)
Okay.

Justin Shelley (05:38)
I A, I know nothing about football. I mean I I I can watch football and enjoy a game, right?

Mario Zaki (05:43)
Mm.

Justin Shelley (05:45)
shameless Cowboys fan. The whole reason I picked the Cowboys is because when I lived in Dallas, they were the local team and I knew nothing about football. So I obviously I picked my local team.

they win all the Super Bowls, as we all know. So it turned out to be great great choice. anyways, if you don't know anything about football, that was a lie. So

Mario Zaki (06:05)
Big lie.

Justin Shelley (06:05)
I n I know nothing about the game. I know even less about the players. I I'm any any football fans that you want to talk to, all they're talking about is the individual players and and their background, their history, their I'm like

Fuck this shit. Like just turn on the game and I just want to watch them throw a football and hit each other. That's it. That's that's my entirety of entertainment around and I like the food. Like I like the snacks. So give me some snacks. Let me watch people hit each other. And hopefully somebody gets hurt. And we can talk about how bad Dak's leg got busted a couple years back and if he's gonna return. You know, like that's the kind of stuff I like about football.

Mario Zaki (06:38)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Shelley (06:40)
and it got to the point where I hated watching football because everybody around me who's watching, they don't even care about the game on the screen.

They're like looking at the individual players and their scores. And then they're flipping to another, another game to score. I'm like, motherfucker, I'm trying to watch this game. Get so I just I quit. I quit watching it all. Now, this season, my stepkids said, Hey Justin, you want to join our our fantasy football league? And I'm like, sure, because I'm just gonna use AI and I don't know anything about it. And what I thought I didn't know was just the surface of the depth of what I don't know.

I I now have a new appreciation for how little I knew. And I I came

Mario Zaki (07:20)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (07:21)
in, the bar was already low. so I'm I'm I'm on this app and I just screenshot it and I send it to AI and I'm like, what am I supposed to do now? Auto draft. I didn't even make the draft because I didn't know there was a draft. they're like, I'm like, I'm in bed or something. I don't know what I was doing. And and these kids are texting me. They're like, Justin, the draft is starting. I'm like, what the fuck are you talking about?

Mario Zaki (07:44)
What's a draft?

Justin Shelley (07:44)
What what

what am I supposed to do with that information? I had no goddamn idea. By the time I responded, I think I was taking a nap, honestly, when it happened, because I'm an old man. I come in ten minutes late, I'm like, I'm here. What am I supposed to do? And they're like, You missed it. It's it you're on auto draft. You you don't have to do anything. I'm like, darn, punish me.

Mario Zaki (08:04)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (08:05)
and so I plug it into AI, I'm like, how did I do? And it's like, actually you did really well. Thank you, computers. so now

I shit you not. I just get on there. I screenshot it. I send it to AI, and I'm like, what am I supposed to do? And it's like, my God, you've got somebody on your active lineup or whatever the fuck it's called who's injured out. You got to get rid of them. Like, okay, how do I do that? We'll tap on their thing. And I'm like, I tap it and it doesn't do what it's supposed to. So I screenshot that and I said, I'm like, this is what happened. It's like, bitch, you're in the wrong screen. I'm like, I don't know. I did what you said. Like, this is

Mario Zaki (08:36)
Ha ha.

Justin Shelley (08:36)
me and fantasy football. And Mario, I'm fucking winning.

Mario Zaki (08:42)
You are you the we're w Yeah. What's your record? Two and

Justin Shelley (08:43)
I mean we're we're three weeks in, I get it. Not even, right? 'Cause we're in week three. Yes.

Mario Zaki (08:49)
Nice nice.

Justin Shelley (08:52)
And I'm second in the league for points and and I'm not trailing by much. And I'm the highest prediction on the playoffs right now. if if that means anything to anybody, 'cause I don't know. I just look at the screens and I'm like, I think this means I'm going to the playoffs. It's week three. You're like, I don't know.

Mario Zaki (09:08)
Well, I mean I'll

tell you this. I I live, breathe, sleep, you know, football. You know, it's I I it it's a very bad obsession of mine. And I'm one and one, you know, you know, so you're doing better than me, you know.

Justin Shelley (09:23)
That's what I'm saying.

Well so so my team name is appropriate. It's the loophole. It's like you don't have to know shit to participate anymore. And win. Now.

Mario Zaki (09:34)
That that's your your y

your team mate or your your league mates, they probably hate you because it's always it's who is that guy? The new person that has no

Justin Shelley (09:43)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (09:43)
clue that people wanna take advantage of. That's the one that ends up just getting all lucky and, you know,

Justin Shelley (09:49)
Yeah, yeah.

Mario Zaki (09:50)
end of the year wins the whole thing and then he's like, you know what, I don't wanna do this anymore. He and he just a leaves on a

Justin Shelley (09:54)
Exactly.

Mario Zaki (09:56)
with a championship and they're like, Fuck that guy, you know?

Justin Shelley (10:00)
I've already thought, I don't think I'll do this again next year. I really don't. It's it's just one more thing I've got to remember to do. I'm like, God, I've I've I think I have to set up my team for this week. I don't know. So I go to AI. I'm like, what? It's it's Wednesday. Here's what the screen looks like. What am I supposed to do? It's like, do this, do that. I'm like, it won't let me. yeah, you can't yet. I'm like, motherfucker. And then I have to set an alarm to know when to do it. And then I think I missed it. And it's like add stress to my day that I don't need Mario. But that is that.

That's the number one thing on my list of how AI has, I don't know if we can really say improved, but you know, because I'm I'm now in this circle of this world that I had no idea how to even participate in. So with that kickoff, ha ha see what I did there. It's your turn, Mario. What what has AI done in your personal life that has added some value?

Mario Zaki (10:54)
Well, I actually did build a platform to help me with my survivor pool for football.

Justin Shelley (11:01)
Okay.

Mario Zaki (11:02)
and I integrated AI into it and you know it it obviously, you know, analyzes different things, but at the end of the day it tells you, okay, for this week, take this team. So for the people that don't know Survivor Pool, it's like you're allowed to pick one team and you could only use them once throughout the year if they if if they win.

Good. You go on to the next week, but you can't use that previous any of the previous teams you've used again. So you have to be a little strategic. and if you lose, you're out, you're eliminated, there is no next week. You're done. Okay. And you know, we

Justin Shelley (11:38)
Cool. That's my kind of game.

Mario Zaki (11:39)
we buy multiple entries and stuff like that, but I use my AI for the first, you know, for the first week and it I it it wanted to take the the LA Chargers. I took the LA Chargers and they lost and that AI

Pick got eliminated. It didn't even get past boot week one. But a lot of people did the same show. So another thing that I'm using AI for in my personal life is so during the summer we rent out our shorehouse for you know a certain amount of weeks. We in you know we go down there a certain amount of weeks. So I I've used AI to build a brand new website for our shorehouse. I've built a back end

to it for my realtor agent to enter more things in there. Or sorry, enter the tenant, the renters information in there. We've integrated like email, contract with e sign, text messaging, you know, for like, you know, advertise like, hey, we're opening up the 2027 season, rental season. So we've built like a I've built an entire platform, you know, to help us

advertise and organize our rentals for for our shorehouse.

Justin Shelley (12:56)
Nice. How

Mario Zaki (12:58)
Yeah. And

Justin Shelley (12:59)
excuse me. How long ago did you do this?

Mario Zaki (13:02)
I started it Monday and

Justin Shelley (13:04)
cool.

Mario Zaki (13:05)
probably by the end of today I'll have it completely done. And that's

Justin Shelley (13:09)
Nice.

Mario Zaki (13:10)
you know, it's it's it's a week, but you know, I I I haven't spent the entire week just doing that. You know, I'm I'm going back and forth to it.

Justin Shelley (13:17)
Yeah, yeah. Right.

Mario Zaki (13:19)
and the the the beauty of it is like the front end of it is the website, you know, and you know I'm going through it and I I have it I built out everything and

A lot of this was from like an old website that me and my wife, you know, kind of put together a couple of years ago. So gathered up, you know, all that information, put it on a new, you know, fancy website. And my wife is looking at it. She's like, Yeah, I think we need to change this. And then she's like, Okay, go ahead and change this. And I'm all all I'm doing is using clawed design. So she tells me to do something, I'm

Justin Shelley (13:52)
Right. You're just talking to it.

Mario Zaki (13:54)
I'm typing it and it then all of a sudden, you know, twenty seconds later, it's changed.

And she's like, okay, do this. I'm like, and then I Justin, I kid you not, maybe after like the fourth, fifth change, she did one of these, like move over. She she elbowed me off the chair, took over the chair, and then she just started working on the design herself.

Justin Shelley (14:13)
Yeah. I was thinking like, why the

fuck do you need to be in this in in the middle of this conversation?

Mario Zaki (14:20)
Yeah, that's the thing. You you gotta you know, with with my wife and I think most wives, you kinda just need to make it look like you messed up something and they're like, No, no, no, you shouldn't have done it this way, do it this way and then they just take over.

Justin Shelley (14:31)
And it'll take

over. Yeah, that's a good point. That's a good point.

Mario Zaki (14:34)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (14:35)
I mean, listen, I've I'm sure I've said this a hundred times already, but my original passion with technology, you know, from dating back from the time I was twelve years old and my dad brought home an Apple IIE. My passion has always been coding, programming. I've I love it. And then

Coding got so complicated for a while that it wasn't fun anymore for me. And and I didn't have the resources, the the manpower to really build what I was trying to build. So I I stopped doing it. I started using off-the-shelf software. I almost said football right there. accidentally, Freudian slip. you know, but now we're back to where that it's it's just like it's so much fun to be able to build stuff again. I absolutely love it. and I'm gonna come back to that. So

that's where I'm gonna kinda end with. Next up for me is in in the business world and with my company, the troubleshooting, you know, and and you and I talked a little bit about that before we hit record. but AI is now being integrated in most troubleshooting platforms. I and I think honestly it's gonna be pretty soon where the end user does this on their own, which is fine. This is the shit I don't want to do. This is not why I got into technology to sit here and tell

and figure out why a printer won't print anymore or to figure out why a computer's running slow or to figure out why a backup didn't run. That stuff's boring as fuck to me. I hate it. So this is one of those things that I absolutely love that we're we're starting to hand that off to technology. I know it freaks people out because they want to say it's gonna take our job from us. Well good that's a dumb job. We shouldn't have to do that job. Let's do funner jobs more jobs that actually like don't suck the energy out of you. So I I really love

that we can use AI to troubleshoot and to do a lot of the kind of grunt work in in our industry. What are your thoughts on that?

Mario Zaki (16:32)
I I completely agree. I I think I think it you know, and we we've done some integrations and you know, we we have some AI integrations. We have like a 24-7 AI agent that helps us with some tickets, helps the technicians, and it has made it made a huge difference. You know, I

Justin Shelley (16:54)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (16:54)
think I think it's like what you said, I think eventually it's gonna go to that. I don't think we're at that point now because

Justin Shelley (17:01)
No,

not even close.

Mario Zaki (17:02)
Yeah. Because you still kind of just like some other, you know, industries, you know, there's a lot of, you know, do it yourselves type of things that you can do.

Justin Shelley (17:11)
Mm-hmm.

Mario Zaki (17:13)
but you're you're kind of just not there. Like, I mean, when YouTube first came out and well, why don't you have you YouTube it? You can do it yourself. You can do it yourself. Now,

Justin Shelley (17:22)
Right.

Mario Zaki (17:23)
yeah, there's some things that you want to do yourself and then some things are like, you know what? Either I don't have time for this or I ain't fucking around with it.

Let the professionals do. And I think I think

Justin Shelley (17:34)
Absolutely.

Mario Zaki (17:35)
we're still at at that phase right now, you know?

Justin Shelley (17:38)
I agree

a hundred percent. And and what I love in in our world, the MSP world with AI, is it used to be to properly troubleshoot something, you had to have a very in-depth knowledge of the entire complex system involved, which is hardware, it is operating system, it is the software you're running on top of the operating system, it's the hundreds of updates. We keep talking about the security updates that go in.

on

a very regular basis, sometimes daily, sometimes monthly, but the the complexity and the the makeup of the system we're troubleshooting is constantly changing. Even if we could understand it in the beginning, it doesn't matter, it changes immediately. You know, I don't know if you if you ever read those books that were a thousand plus pages on Microsoft server, Microsoft

Mario Zaki (18:29)
Mm.

Justin Shelley (18:30)
Workstation, Microsoft TCPI, you know, networking, whatever.

Each one of them was a thousand plus pages and then you would go take a test on it. Our brains aren't designed to work that way. I love to hand that off to AI. I still want to understand what I'm doing and why and what AI is doing and why. But I do love that I don't any longer have to understand every detail of every system that I'm trying to troubleshoot. But I have enough hist I mean, I've been doing this for 30 years, right? So when I'm using AI to troubleshoot something and it says, hey, I think this is the problem, I can go, that's horse shit.

And move, you know, like that's not the problem. Or I can say, my God, I never thought about that. Thank you. Like, and that's really what happens most of the time. So that that's my real love for how AI is improving our industry. I think it's gonna shrink the response times and the resolution times and make our our service better.

Mario Zaki (19:19)
Yeah, it it it

exact and and it's it right now AI is a great complementary tool to what you know it save you time, kind of help you think l you know different you know different aspects of things much easier, but you still have to have the overall knowledge of the system. So and I think I mentioned this before. So I have some some cousins that work for like Amazon and

Shopify some very big, you know, you know, companies and they're developers for those. And, you know, I've talked to them about like is, you know, are you guys like downsizing using AI and stuff like that? They're like, it's the exact opposite. We're actually hiring

Justin Shelley (20:04)
Right.

Mario Zaki (20:05)
more because they want to be more productive. And during the conversation, they t they talked about they're like, they're not just gonna hire somebody that is

has nothing to do with the web development. They're gonna hire somebody with some experience, but they don't have to hire, you know, they need some experience, but they don't have to hire somebody with 20, 30 years of experience. They can hire somebody that has has the knowledge because you still need to understand how to set up the security, how to set up the

The ability where if you're building something, it it's not just a use it now. You have to think about the longevity of the system, how to expand, how to, you know, is this gonna handle, you know, it can it may be fine with like five users, but what happens when you go to twenty-five years users, or what happens when you go to a thousand users? You know, you need to have all that stuff he you know in your mind before you start telling it, develop me this system, because it's gonna just literally

AI is literally going to do exactly what you tell it to do. But if you don't feed it, that you want a system that's going to handle a thousand users, you know, 10,000 users and stuff like that, it makes a huge difference, you know, which avenue it goes down

Justin Shelley (21:25)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (21:26)
and and what back-end tools it's going to use to build it.

Justin Shelley (21:31)
One of the things that's fun for me is like as I'm doing my development or vibe coding or whatever we're calling it, because I think vibe coding's gonna go away as this is just how we develop software now. I I use the same AI system for my business strategy, you know, like planning, building the business plan, the forecast and all that, as I do for building out my software.

And so it has a very thorough knowledge of what I do, what my business is about. And so when I'm building it, like I'm an EOS guy. We were talking about that before, entrepreneurial operating system traction or you know, whatever that's known by. so I've I've trained mine to filter through that lens, first of all, to act as an EOS implementer, second of all, and then third, I have my entire business plan built into my the the software that I'm building.

And so when I say you know, I I want to build this this platform, it's already looking at my 10-year picture and knows where I plan to scale and can build it accordingly. So, you know, I I absolutely love that as well. That's that's kind of wasn't really on my list, but that's one of the things you just made me think of there. what else? And so to be clear, we're right now we're talking about how AI has helped is currently helping us. We're gonna pivot in a second to

are crystal balls. Like what what do we think the future is gonna look like based on AI? What else do you have for your picture today of how it has improved your life?

Mario Zaki (23:07)
I mean, that's the thing. It's like if you would have if you would have asked me six months ago, what do you think is AI is gonna look like in six months, I wouldn't have imagined you know, it being where it is now. So I don't even know what it's gonna be like in another

Justin Shelley (23:21)
Good point.

Mario Zaki (23:22)
six months or another twelve months and stuff like that. But I mean, it is definitely it it's improv you know, the beauty of AI is that it improves every day.

But I I do think that it's definitely going to be in in the I think near future year, two years, it's definitely gonna be, you know, life changing, you know, with the robots, these robots that are gonna come out, you know. I I I honestly, me personally, I would love to have one at my house. you

know

Justin Shelley (23:59)
It's the Jetsons, man.

Other than the flying cars, which that's on my list of future developments, but yeah, we're we're we're getting into that era. Right? Rosie, was that her name? The the

Mario Zaki (24:09)
Yeah. I mean look at yeah.

Justin Shelley (24:13)
Jetsons robot.

Mario Zaki (24:15)
I mean look at what like these self-driving cars now. You know, you have the RoboCab, you have like these self-driving Teslas now, you have some other ones and stuff like that. I I read somewhere that Tesla's gonna be releasing the software for the Robocab to public use in a few like within a year. So you could

Justin Shelley (24:36)
really? Yeah.

Mario Zaki (24:38)
actually get a Tesla.

to drive you to work and then drop you off and then it can go and work Uber while you're making money at work. You know, so that that

Justin Shelley (24:46)
wow.

Mario Zaki (24:48)
that that's gonna be pretty cool. You know, like I I you know, I I'm still a gat an auto you know, like a gas guzzling type of driver. You know, my car is both are I have two cars and they're both gas guzzlers, but hey, I would consider getting a Tesla just to like, you know, pimp it out, make me some money while I'm you know

Justin Shelley (25:08)
Right.

Mario Zaki (25:09)
Sitting here playing with AI, you know.

But I I I I do think it's

Justin Shelley (25:12)
It was about sorry, go ahead.

Mario Zaki (25:14)
gonna get better. No, no, I I go ahead.

Justin Shelley (25:18)
it was about I wanna I wanna get the timeline right. Between five and ten years ago, I don't I don't know exactly how long ago, when, you know, I'm I'm reading articles in popular science. It was either popular science or popular mechanics, I don't remember which, talking about the autonomous cars. Tesla was just kind of coming on the scene. And I really believed that my kids who didn't have driver's licenses at the time would probably never get them or never need them.

It looked like this stuff was gonna happen a lot faster than it did. I I think that is still going to happen, but we're not there yet. But at the time, the prediction was we wouldn't even buy cars. Forget licenses. We wouldn't even own our own vehicles because of what you just said. manufacturers, auto manufacturers weren't even gonna sell. They were gonna be the new rental companies and you would just summons a car. today I need a a Ford F four fifty because I've got some heavy shit I gotta haul.

Tomorrow I need a Tesla, or you know, or whatever. And you would just summons the vehicle you need, it arrives at your house, picks you up, you load your stuff into it, and you go to work, and then you release it back to the public. You know, and it it seemed at the time like that was the inevitable future. That with flying cars, right? That was the next one. We've got drones that are commonplace now. They were fascinating what, 10 years ago? Now it's just like, yeah, that's normal. all we have to do is scale those up, and then the drone just comes and picks us up and flies us wherever we want.

yeah, transportation is one of those that I'm I'm really fascinated with. I think we're gonna see a lot of change. I wanna say improvement, TBD on that one, but I think there's gonna be a lot of change in in transportation in the next I don't know, because it used to be in the next five years. And now I'm thinking, well, maybe in the next 10 years we'll we'll see. like you said before. Predicting the future right now is really tough. It's it's it's crazy.

Mario Zaki (27:09)
Yeah. But I mean, like I

I have a friend of mine that has like a s Tesla Cybertruck and he's had it for about six months now and he told me he hasn't driven in six months. He hops in, he enters his address, and the thing just drives by itself. He hasn't driven in six months.

Justin Shelley (27:29)
Wow.

Mario Zaki (27:29)
Yeah. And I'm like, I'm like, do you trust it? He's like, Yeah, I I

Justin Shelley (27:33)
Well that that

Mario Zaki (27:34)
think it's a better driver than me.

Justin Shelley (27:36)
And I think there's potential for that. I know that where I kind of fell off thinking this was the wave of the future is when these these things started killing people. You know, there was a one of them, an autonomous car, that drove underneath a semi trailer because

Mario Zaki (27:53)
Mm-hmm.

Justin Shelley (27:54)
it looked like the the white van type or box type trailer. It looked like the horizon or whatever. And so it didn't see it and it and it drove right underneath it and

like sheared the top off and killed the guy. You know, like and and I know Uber was experimenting with some stuff back in the day. So it it was one of those things that everybody rushed to it and then kind of pulled back. And I haven't followed it since then, honestly. So that is interesting to me that he hasn't driven in six months. I did not know that they were there. I thought even I thought all of these autonomous driving companies had reeled it back in and said, no, you can't do that. You've got to have your hands on the wheel. You've got to be alert, aware

but I do think it has that potential to be better than us because dude, I've got A D D. When I drive, I'm bored as fuck. And I'm looking at the mountains, I'm looking at the sky, I'm looking over here and you know, like that's that's dangerous. I would love to have a computer watching all that stuff for me.

Mario Zaki (28:49)
So I mean with the Tesla now it has a camera and once it notices like you're not l like like it needs i i it's weird with the Tesla. I think it needs to have your eyes open, you know, and at

Justin Shelley (29:04)
Okay.

Mario Zaki (29:05)
night at night you can trick it. If you wear sunglasses, it doesn't bother you. Like you can fall asleep with sunglasses on, it doesn't detect you.

Justin Shelley (29:12)
Yikes.

Mario Zaki (29:14)
you know, my so I I have a Cadillac and

In my catalog, you can actually set it to drive by itself, but only on highways. And it

Justin Shelley (29:24)
Okay.

Mario Zaki (29:25)
freaks me out. Even though it's never made a mistake, it freaks me out. I I I need control, but it freaks me out, especially

Justin Shelley (29:30)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mario Zaki (29:32)
when I see it give a turn signal. And I'm like, what the hell is going? And it'll actually change shit change gear lanes and pass cars. I'm like, I'm too nervous for this. but

Justin Shelley (29:41)
Wow. Yeah.

Mario Zaki (29:44)
that my it won't turn off to exits or anything and pull up into a parking lot.

spot, you know, it's gonna stay on the highway. But it it I think I think what it it like it doesn't know how to handle if there's a road closure or if there's you know they have cones and it's shifting, you know, you know, like you know, if they have a lane that's closed and they need you to shift to one lane or whatever. I don't know if it handles that very well. You know, so it's still, I don't know if it's there, but

I think he'll definitely be there within then before five years. I think he'll be there within one or two

Justin Shelley (30:19)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (30:20)
years.

Justin Shelley (30:21)
I mean, and and this is where, you know, when I AI is an interesting thing because AI has been in development and research mode and everything else since I was in college a long time ago when I'm I'm old. but the recent advancements in AI that it has become ubiquitous, that it is everywhere. I th I think was the missing piece in autonomous driving. So where I kind of stopped following it was before.

the explosion of AI. And it's back in the day when they were still taking images. And you know, you'd have a team of people that would have to point at a part of the image and label it and then send it off for, you know, the computer to process and understand. Machine learning was actually human driven. You know, there was the cases of the

Mario Zaki (31:08)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (31:08)
the robot vacuums and they it would get leaked because they would send it to third the developers, the the manufacturers would send the images that it took of your home.

To third party processing centers, which were humans looking at all the footage and identifying this is a cat, this is a dog, this is a toilet. That toilet has a human sitting on it. you know, that's the stuff that started getting leaked out. And they're like, my God. Like, turn off your vacuums.

Mario Zaki (31:38)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (31:39)
but but I'm I what I'm saying is we've gotten past that point where AI now on its own understands images.

in a way that I really think that's gonna help the autonomous driving world. We don't have to have a human point out that's a traffic cone, that's a, you know, construction zone. it it's getting to where it's figuring that stuff out on its own. Right? Is that kind of what you're saying?

Mario Zaki (32:05)
Yeah, yeah. And then pivoting coming back to robots, like an an in house

Justin Shelley (32:09)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (32:10)
robot. I mean, I don't know if it's gonna be taking pictures of you sitting on the toilet. It probably will, but I mean, listen.

Justin Shelley (32:15)
it will. It will. It'll start making fun of you pretty soon.

Mario Zaki (32:20)
I I mean, I I you know, we have two cleaning ladies that come to our house like every two weeks. sweet, sweet ladies, you know, love them very much. but you know, pay them, you know, pretty decent.

You know, I have you know, a landscaper that comes every week to mold the lawn. I have you know, different things for different people. Like if I have, you know, if I need new sheetrock because we had like, you know, a leak or because my wife decided to redecorate my kids' rooms, you know, we have somebody come and repainting and stuff like that. I mean, imagine imagine just having a robot and you just tell them like, hey, go mold the lawn.

Go take the garbage out.

Justin Shelley (33:05)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (33:05)
go paint go paint this room. you know, go do the you know, this laundry and dust and do you know that shit, sign me up, you know?

Justin Shelley (33:15)
Cook cook me dinner. Yeah.

Mario Zaki (33:18)
yeah.

Justin Shelley (33:18)
I mean seriously, it's Rosie from the Jetsons, right? Like this is

Mario Zaki (33:21)
The Jutsons. Yeah.

Justin Shelley (33:23)
this is where we're arriving at. It's it is interesting. I I swear, I mean I watched that cartoon as a kid. Never in my life did I think any of that would really I thought it was all just absolute fantasy land. It was fun. I mean it's it's not far from reality.

Mario Zaki (33:38)
But tell I mean

I'm me personally, if it's once it's released to the public, I may not go with V with version one, I may go with like version two, you

Justin Shelley (33:47)
Yeah. Yeah.

Mario Zaki (33:48)
know, but I will definitely I'll definitely be inquiring about it, you know. I would love to have

Justin Shelley (33:54)
So version one to version two, you're talking about holding off a whole three days at the speed of development, anyways.

Mario Zaki (33:58)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (34:01)
let's talk about healthcare for a second. This is for me the most exciting thing on the horizon where technology is concerned. We now quantum computers are still far enough out that it's I I wish we had both of these technologies at the same time because I think we have the potential to solve most healthcare problems.

A

lot of them. They're making some huge advancements there. And on the horizon, it's like, I don't know, we might become immortal, Mario. What do what do you think about this?

Mario Zaki (34:36)
Yeah. I I

Justin Shelley (34:35)
Or do you follow this? Is this is this one that interests you that you h

Mario Zaki (34:37)
I I do. I do. you know, my wife is a physician's assistant in the emergency room,

Justin Shelley (34:42)
Okay.

Mario Zaki (34:42)
so so you know, they're using some AI stuff, you know, you know, already, and you know, she tells me about it all the time. I I do think it will make a world of a difference. I think AI, I mean, I've read some things that AI has taken, I don't remember if it was blood work or like some sort of like

Type of scan and was able to detect stuff that the human eye would have never

Justin Shelley (35:09)
Right.

Mario Zaki (35:09)
detected. I think it will be very good. Now, I I know we said we're not gonna be the conspiracy theories, no more tin hats for this episode. I'm interested to see what happens with these big big pharma companies because

You know, these guys are making trillions of dollars and there's a lot of people that say they're the ones holding back a lot of maybe medications or cures because they won't make any money on it. It'll be interesting to see what happens with that world over there, you know, with what big pharmaceutic's are gonna do about

Justin Shelley (35:47)
Yeah,

I I mean, if they're smart, they don't become blockbuster. Let me just say that. Like you could you could fight it to an extent, which is what the big names in AI are trying to fight, like we talked about with our tinfoil hats on last week, is they're trying to stifle development to to build a mode around themselves. And I think you're right. Some big pharma companies will try to do that. I think the smart ones will own it because what I see on the horizon in healthcare is

accelerating the development of medications, vaccines, treatment plans, all this stuff. So yes, they have a a financial interest in keeping us unhealthy, but the company that can make money on keeping us healthy is gonna win. Like this is

Mario Zaki (36:38)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (36:39)
how the market works. If if I've got a company that I'm like, no, I gotta keep Mario sick.

so that he buys my medicine. And then there's another company out there that's like, Mario, I can cure you with this one treatment and you're done. You're getting the business, and I'm fucked. I don't care how much I want to prevent this, how much legislation. and that is where I'm hopeful. Let's just say I'm hopeful that we we get into where healthcare developments accelerate at an exponential rate, and we start curing cancer and

Diabetes and you know, some of this stuff that has just been plaguing humanity forever. I think we start seeing some real improvements in those areas.

Mario Zaki (37:23)
yeah, I I mean I I'm hopeful, you know. I'm I'm hoping that my robot can hook, you know, cook me some better, you know, meals

Justin Shelley (37:31)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (37:32)
so I I stay healthier. I I I I would love to see like you ever go to you know when you go to the airport, you go to that you know, that little machine that you have to kind of put your arms like this and then it does like a s

Justin Shelley (37:43)
yeah.

Mario Zaki (37:44)
quick s you know, x ray scan and then you just move on. Why can't they

Justin Shelley (37:48)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (37:48)
use that in like

You just go in there, you do whatever, it can automatically do like an X ray, a CAT scan, a you know, MRI, all that stuff, all going, you know, you know,

Justin Shelley (38:00)
No, you're

you're exactly right. And that is one of the things on the horizon. It's the AI run diagnostics at home, where we can, you know, in the near future, theoretically we'll be able to diagnose a lot of this stuff without ever even having to go into the doctor and and being caught earlier before the symptoms are obvious. this this is going to become a standard, I think.

Mario Zaki (38:25)
Yeah. Yeah, because a lot of a lot of the diseases, especially like when we're talking about cancer and stuff like that, it's early early detection. You know, if it

Justin Shelley (38:34)
That's the key, yeah.

Mario Zaki (38:35)
you know, early detection, it it it's definitely, you know, if first of all, if if it if you can make it as easy as just walking in through a little room or a little cube like the X ray machine, versus setting like an appointment three months, you know

you know, from now to go see a doctor, you have to get a prerequisite. And then once they do that, okay, you know, you have to drink these disgusting, you know, fluids and and then you have to go make another

Justin Shelley (39:05)
Mm-hmm. Or have jammed up your ass.

Mario Zaki (39:09)
you have something jammed up your ass. I mean, I don't maybe AI might still want to do that.

Justin Shelley (39:12)
The fluids. No, they they

they they they they fill you up from the other end sometimes to do imaging. don't ask me how I know. Do not ask me how I know.

Mario Zaki (39:20)
Yeah. you know, like

me personally, I'm one of those people. I I don't want to sit there and take all you know, time off and it's three months from now, and then I leave one doctor, and then I

Justin Shelley (39:32)
Right.

Mario Zaki (39:32)
have to go to another doctor, and then you know, it it's just it's so much work and I feel like if there is a advancement and to make that easier and stuff like that, and it's like a one stop shop, shit, take my money.

Justin Shelley (39:50)
With that, Mario, I think we're gonna move to wrap this thing up, unless you've left anything unsaid. and and of course, as always happens when I'm recording and we don't edit hardly at all, I forgot what I was gonna say. I w I had this brilliant thought to end this thing on, and I lost it. So I'm gonna maybe it'll come back, maybe I won't. I'm gonna kind of tease what we're gonna talk about. I I already mentioned it last week. We are going to start talking about self-hosting AI.

What I am most I I am on a rampage. I am anti-vendor right now because vendors I think have just sucked the life out of us, especially in our industry. but across the board, we have willingly given up control of everything we own to a cloud provider, to an outsource this, to a whatever, right? We don't own our own businesses anymore. We don't own our data, we don't own the processing, we don't own the computers, we don't own shit.

And

I'm tired of that. I'm bringing it back in-house. I am really excited. I I haven't done it yet, but it won't be long before I bring AI in-house. I don't like as much as I I was I mentioned it a minute ago, my AI platform that I rent knows everything about me and my business. I don't like that. I mean I like the the convenience of it, but I don't like that I don't have ownership of it. And I am really looking forward to bringing it in-house and then integrating all the stuff I'm building into my own hosted AI. That's that's where this thing's headed.

in in my world. That's that's what I'm planning to do. And I was hoping in saying all that that I would come back to my closing thoughts and I lost it. It's gone for good. So Mario, do you have any final thoughts? like I said, we're we're gonna wrap this thing up and then we're we'll get back to our doom and gloom and scare the shit out of you next week. Don't worry. but

Mario Zaki (41:38)
Yeah.

Justin Shelley (41:39)
but final thoughts for today, Mario.

Mario Zaki (41:41)
I I I it's pretty much like what you said earlier, like y you know, there's still some people and I ha I have a client that, you know, is anti AI. He's like, no, this stuff is not gonna work and stuff like that. I I think it's it's one of those things that you cannot avoid. You're gonna have to steer into it, you know, take it with

a grain of salt, work on it, do whatever. You don't have to sit there and vibe code, you know, day one. But it is definitely something that is going to be, you know, taking over. You know, we're good, we're we've reached that era where that, you know, it's manual stuff is gone. You know, it is now

Justin Shelley (42:26)
Yeah, yeah.

Mario Zaki (42:27)
you still have to do work, but you have to do it with the proper tools. Just like everything that we've ever been doing, you you know, you can't

put in a light bulb with a hammer. You know, you need to you need to have the proper tools. and AI is one of those things. AI is now providing tool the proper tools to make people more productive, more knowledgeable. Yeah, I mean, I I caught my son the other day. I walked in, I came home from work early. I walked in, he was doing his homework and I was so proud of him. And then I looked at his phone, he had Chat GPT up. You know, so you know,

Justin Shelley (43:04)
Sure.

Mario Zaki (43:06)
Yeah, yeah.

Justin Shelley (43:06)
And and

we, because we're old and we did it one way, don't like seeing the younger generation doing it a better, smarter way, which is what I would label that. Because

Mario Zaki (43:15)
Yeah. Yeah.

Justin Shelley (43:17)
Mario, I know a whole lot more today using AI than I did before AI. I am more educated now than I was with a book and a teacher. Sorry.

Mario Zaki (43:28)
Yeah. Well well I caught him saying

he took a s picture and he says, Give me the answers to these

Justin Shelley (43:33)
I know, I know. But

he he still has to take that answer and transcribe it. Like there is learning that happens. And I'll be honest, like the stuff that we don't need to know that we can just do that, it that tool's gonna be available forever. So why do we need to know it? I mean, I I I don't know. there's

Mario Zaki (43:48)
Yeah, that's true.

Justin Shelley (43:52)
an argument on both sides of this. I it's a tool. It's a tool he's gonna have for the rest of his life. Teach him how to use it now. It's not going away.

I I did and thank you because you talking allowed me to like re regain my thoughts. Here's what I wanted to end with. I didn't cut you off, right? You're you you got yours out. Okay, just making sure.

Mario Zaki (44:11)
No, no, hurry before you forget.

Justin Shelley (44:13)
I know, right? No, I've got it written down. I'm good. what I we talk a lot about, they took our jobs. I wish I could imit like impersonate South Park better because they say it way better than I do. But that is the fear. AI is gonna take our jobs. And and you just mentioned it. You listed off three or four people.

That you currently pay that you would like to replace with a robot. It's a valid fear. Here's what I think happens the people that are doing unskilled labor now get elevated to where they can take on better jobs, higher paying jobs, because they will have better tools. The stuff that nobody wants to do, the grunt work that gets paid trash wages, we outsource that. That goes somewhere else. I also think that as we become more efficient, either the demand goes up, which is what we've seen if we look back in history.

We've never gotten to a point where we want less stuff. Like we always want more. If we got more money, then we want to buy more shit. And then that just means we have to make more money. Like this, this never ends. I think that's what happens. Worst case, which becomes the best case, we can become efficient where we don't have to work 40, 50, 60, 80 hours a week just to make it, just to be successful. Maybe we get back to where we get to enjoy our lives a little bit, a little bit better quality of life. We still have to work, we still have to drive things.

but maybe we're that book, The Four Hour Work Week, I don't know. I've never read it, but I think it's funny. maybe we get there. Maybe we get to where life is actually fun and enjoyable instead of just always on this hamster wheel of working, working, working, working so that God forbid, maybe we can have a goddamn vacation at some point in the future. Not that I'm bitter about that right now. as everybody around me going on vacation and I'm sitting here grinding away. It's like, damn, I need a vacation. that's that's really where I think I think life gets better. I really do.

We're

gonna talk about doom and gloom. We're gonna talk about how to protect yourself because there are real threats, real risks, real dangers out there. But I do think life gets better as we move forward. That is my final thought and my closing argument. Mario, unless you've got something to add to that, say it if you do, say goodbye if you don't, and we're gonna get the hell out of here and we'll be back next week with more doom and gloom.

Mario Zaki (46:18)
Yeah, I mean listen,

Justin, I couldn't agree with you more. I I you know, I was in Egypt for you know four weeks and life was just it was just not all work, you know. And it's not

Justin Shelley (46:30)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (46:31)
because I was on vacation, but just people there in general, that it's not all work. It is it it's like they they enjoy their life. You know, they still work, but they

Justin Shelley (46:41)
Mm-hmm.

Mario Zaki (46:42)
they enjoy their life and we don't have that here. Maybe we will be able to do something like that.

and as far as in you know, I there was a couple episodes ago we were talking about taking jobs and I was like, fuck it, take their jobs, you know, because

Justin Shelley (46:56)
I don't

Mario Zaki (46:57)
because I you know how how it takes it takes me months now to like find, you know, an employee, you know, and if they show if they show up to the interview or if they show up to the even the zoom meeting, or if they if they show up to the first day of work, or even if they make it to their second week of work.

It's like it's an i it's a crapshoot out there. And you know what? If I could replace it with AI, I will. You know, I'm one

Justin Shelley (47:23)
Yeah.

Mario Zaki (47:24)
of those guys, if I can, I will. You know, it may suck, you know, but at the end of the day, I have a service to provide to my customers. I have I'm not trying to replace my existing employees. I love my existing employees. Yeah, you know, it would it be good to have somebody take out the trash for me and you know, maybe mow the lawn.

Yeah, you know, maybe. I'm gonna have to re you know, maybe replace those guys. But you know, I I love those guys too. But you know, if I can if I can save some money and enjoy my life, like because we we just said, like it the whole point is enjoying your life. If I can save the money that I'm paying here, here or here and enjoy my life, you know, I'm gonna I'm gonna do it, you know.

Justin Shelley (48:09)
And

and I'm just gonna say again, where where you're talking about and I'm just gonna be blunt, you're talking about costing people their livelihood. You're going to replace them, which means they aren't going to have a job, which means they don't make money, which means they can't eat. My contention is it frees them up and we've already got the resources so that they can do better work. I think life gets better for everybody, even the ones who lose their jobs, their their menial labor jobs, which let's be honest, how much joy is there?

In mowing a lawn and taking out the trash. I'm not saying it's not a respectable profession. I I respect it 100%. I do. But is that what they want to do? You know, maybe they can do something better. Maybe, maybe we all elevate, we, you know, we we become I don't want to say more skilled, but it is a byproduct. But we have better tools and better resources, and we all get to elevate our lives. Mario, if you look back at human history, it's all that's happened.

From day one, is we just get better and better, more comfortable, more productive, our quality of life goes up. And I think that's what happens

Mario Zaki (49:14)
Yeah, I mean,

Justin Shelley (49:14)
here.

Mario Zaki (49:15)
yeah, and and I I couldn't agree with you more. I mean, we've had things, you know, in our lifetime that has changed things that we've always said it's gonna take away jobs and it doesn't necessarily it may take away that position, but

Justin Shelley (49:28)
Mm-hmm.

Mario Zaki (49:29)
people will end up working doing something else, you know. They they yeah.

Justin Shelley (49:32)
Mm, probably something they enjoy more.

Mario Zaki (49:34)
We're always going to have very similar unemployment rate, no matter what

is out there. I don't think we're gonna jump from like a five percent unemployment rate or whatever we're at now to like an 80% unemployment rate. I don't think that's ever gonna happen, or at least in our lifetime, I don't think that's ever gonna happen, especially because of AI. I think it's going to when AI, you know, is fully developed, I think it's going to have develop you know, have more people, you know, need different type new it's gonna develop new types of careers or new type of positions.

And they they would be working that and

Justin Shelley (50:12)
And we've taken

people with no resources and given them the opportunity to create and develop. So we have now the large, the vast majority of our population does not have the resources to bring their brilliant ideas to fruition. They can't do it. There are ideas all over the place that just get snuffed out. That changes. And so and our our desire to consume does not go away. And now we've got more resources to build more stuff.

And the consumption rate goes up, and I think we just elevate life. I think that's what we do. I think that's what you're saying.

Mario Zaki (50:47)
Yeah.

Yeah, 100%. And I I know I know what you know there's gonna be people that, you know, disagree and you know feel the complete opposite way. And I respect those opinions. I you know, I do. you know, but

Justin Shelley (50:59)
I don't nah.

Mario Zaki (51:01)
I I I don't necessarily think that just because, you know, somebody may end up having to switch careers doesn't mean we should just completely abandon, you know, a a technology that's you know, being developed.

Justin Shelley (51:14)
And

and there it is, you nailed it. AI will cause people to switch careers. Absolutely. But I believe

Mario Zaki (51:19)
Yeah. Yeah.

Justin Shelley (51:20)
it elevates them. I don't think it puts them in the gutter. That's that's my take. All right. With that, Mario, we're gonna wrap up. We're gonna get the hell out of here. It is truly Friday. We record later in the week. We publish on Tuesday. But right now, Mario, it's time to go do something different than stress about work and AI. So thank you for being here. We're out.

Mario Zaki (51:45)
Didn't you say it was gonna be a quick one today?

Justin Shelley (51:47)
Yeah, something like that.