Speaker 1: How are you doing today, JL, I am doing well.
Speaker 2: You can call me Joe if he'd like to. I
go by either name.
Speaker 1: Oh, I'm so glad that you said Joe. That was
my father's name, So therefore the presence of my father
is going to be right here with us if I'm
going to use that name, Joe.
Speaker 2: All right.
Speaker 1: Wonderful putting a book like this together. I can imagine
the required amount of time, dedication, loyalty, and perseverance, because
in a book like this, it would be so easy
for the average person to say, I'll get around to it,
but not you. You went all the way and now
we get to hold it, we get to read it,
and we get to talk about it.
Speaker 2: I'm so grateful for that compliment. Thank you so much.
I think what makes it possible is that I am
just surrounded by a truly supportive family and great friends.
Speaker 1: So when you're dealing with a techno thriller, I mean
we're talking about you have to be up to date
with what's going on because somebody's going to call you
out in a heartbeat. So what kind of planning did
you have to do and making sure that you were
digging into the right area.
Speaker 2: Well, partially it's due to the experience that I've got
in the industry. But I had to take a lot
of breaks and ask experts, does this make sense? Is
this really something that happens in the medical field? Pick
up phones for people who are in the financial industry
and say, I think that this is what's happening. What
can you tell me about it? And I wanted I
wanted for the mechanisms that the antagonist, the bad guy,
the AI, that they were using to do all of
the bad things. I wanted those to be as real
as possible. I also wanted to be able to describe
in a very clear way to the readers how AI works,
how quantum computing works. But it shouldn't sound like a textbook.
Sounds natural as part of the story, and so I
wanted to get it, burn that in and talk about
why is it important that these things are kept at
sub zero temperatures? So that yes, I'm pleasing the people
who are at my level, but also I wanted my
kids who are in high school and college to be
able to pick it up and say, I get it,
and this is approachable and it's a fun story to read.
Speaker 1: Yeah, because they get AI And the thing is, though,
is that slowly, maturely, the elders generation is starting to
get it as well, because this is a conversation starter.
My wife and I sat there talking so much about
what's going on in Damon Protocol that it it really
became a part of our now. And that's what I
love about authors. They can create a book that puts
us in a place of let's just talk. Can we
just talk?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah. And one of the themes of the book
is human connections. The bad guy the AI. We don't
share that AI speak. All that we see is how
the the humans the protagonist is impacted by all of
these things happening around him, and we're kind of rooting
for the good guy, but we're also trying to get
him to want to shake him and say, hey, pay
attention to your family. Those are the important ones. It
all comes back to trust and loyalty and our connection
to each other. And that's what I'm able to show
by having an AI that isn't the cliche robots, explosions
and nuclear armageddon, but is instead working through shadows.
Speaker 1: And you know that's happening every day because I mean,
oh my god, the emails and the text messages and
even me messing around with AI technology on chat GPT.
There's a lot of stuff going on. It's like, I
don't know if I need to be toying with this.
Speaker 2: Well, it's a great tool to use as long as
it's helping us achieve something meaningful. Yeah, but it's so
easy to get wrapped up in the technology and kind
of forget that there are important people in our lives.
And I wanted to pull on that string with the
novel because I kind of share some of those bad
qualities with the protagonist. I have guiltily put work in
front of family and made those mistakes, and luckily I
have people around me who have snapped me out of
it when when it got too bad.
Speaker 1: Please do not move. There's more with jail Spears coming
up next. Wait wait wait wait wait wait, there's more
with Joe coming up next. The name of the book
Damon Protocol. We're back with Joe jail Spears. See. I
see books like this. The authors themselves are living in
the future, your visionaries of a present that hasn't happened yet,
and so therefore, because you're talking about it, we now
have a sci fi type connection to what's going on,
and it makes us more aware of where we are now.
Speaker 2: Well, thank you. I was hoping that some of these
conversations could be had. So although we're nowhere near having
an that's out to murder people and take over the world,
the mechanisms that this fictional AI uses they exist in
the real world. So all of the subtle control we
see that with the way social media is set to
people to divide us and make it difficult for us
to connect with each other. We see the colonial pipeline,
the cyber attack in two thousand and one that shut
down fuel and gas in the southern US for a while.
There was an Oldsman in Florida water treatment plant where
a cyber attack attempted to dump a lie into the
water beyond safe levels. And so we really need to
be aware of what our digital footprint is and how
we can protect ourselves online. So I bring that back
to there's a teenager in the book who is having
deep fakes made of her