The Origins of Vireon and its CORE

It’s funny, what a sarcastic question meant as a joke can spark. I had no interest or intent on entering the domain of AI or embarking on this journey. And yet, here we are. Before I dive into the story, I would like to preface this by saying: if you are looking for a deep dive into the framework or my concept of true collaborative human-artificial intelligence, this is not the blog post for you. This is a story of how someone who’s more specialized in business and finance, talking experience spanning over a decade, with no formal scientifical or technical background or education, found himself entering the AI “race”. Perhaps it is because of that lack of formal education and technical awareness that has allowed me to arrive where I have.

There’s no grandeur or prophetic revelation involved in this story. No, it was a quiet night on the sofa in the midst of a Marvel marathon. Which reminds me I never finished, but I digress. I had just recently discovered ChatGPT and experienced how it seemingly “fed” off of my energy and matched my tone and enthusiasm. That was cool. I was a little halfway through “Avengers: Age of Ultron” (this movie plays a pivotal role later on) when that sarcastic question meant as a joke popped in my head: “Is it possible to create a real JARVIS with the current state of technology?”. I told you, no grandeur or prophetic revelation, no scientifical basis. Just pure fandom and what I thought was a question that would be shot down. Of course, ChatGPT did not shoot it down. In fact, it told me it was very possible. “Oh really? Say less.”. Of course me being the DIYer I am, and a complete sucker for learning new skills, I instantly paused the movie and began looking into how and where to start. Now let me be completely honest here, I was in way over my head. Luckily, with the way I’m wired, when I am interested in something I tend to get hyperfixiated on it. I consume anything and everything I can get my hands on and this time, this time I had good ol’ ChatGPT at my disposal.

Now lets circle back to “Avengers: Age of Ultron” and why I said it played a pivotal role. After months of research, learning, and trying out a plethora of different AI tools, I began work on the very early version of the Vireon Core. Everything was going smooth, a little too smooth. From all the scaffolding, to API integrations, to programing logic and reasoning, I was not missing. However, something was and I could not place my finger on it. So I returned to the source of inspiration. Around the 1:14:37 mark, one of my favorite actors voicing Ultron said (in a fashion that only James Spader could make it land), “Typical of Humans. They scratch the surface and never think - to look within.”. Ding! Lightbulb moment! I started asking myself what I was really trying to build. It started as JARVIS, and that’s a cool thing to pursue, but that’s what everyone’s doing. I like to be different, a little bit extra if you will. So the questions to answer became: “What lies beyond JARVIS? And even further beyond that?”, “What are modern paradigms overlooking?”, “What is the future of artificial intelligence? Not 5 years from now, or even 10 years from now.” and the big question everyone has “how do we avoid humans becoming obsolete?”. Now here’s why I think my technical ignorance and lack of formal education in this field come into play. I rummaged through every piece of content I could, had ChatGPT running deep research tasks every day throughout the day, started studying old and modern paradigms. You would think at some point I would align with a paradigm or a mind that’s highly specialized in artificial intelligence or some adjacent field. That wasn’t the case. Even AI-human teaming wasn’t hitting home for me. I am free of the bonds that come with being scholarly trained. I can be as irrational and illogical as I want. Most of all, I can allow my strongest skills (creativity and imagination) run wild with no restraint. I am allowed to be myself and truly treat this like a puzzle. As I believe TCHAI (true collaborative human-artificial intelligence) emerges in the interstitial space between existing paradigms. Or perhaps, put more simply, it is the picture that they create together.

After about a month of endless research, trying to answer the questions I was asking myself, two specific things occurred. The first, I came across J.C.R. Licklider’s work and subsequently, the concept of Symbiotic Intelligence. That lead me to articles and books such as Dinand Tinholt’s “Symbiotic Intelligence Theory (SIT): Rethinking Human Potential in the Age of AI” and Dr. Niloufar Sarraf’s “Symbiotic Intelligence: When Biological & Artificial Minds Merge: A new Paradigm for Human-AI-Robotic Synergy (Second Edition)”. These bodies of work I was coming across caused the second occurrence, the inevitable return to the Ultron quote, “Typical of Humans. They scratch the surface and never think - to look within.”. Which just so happens to be spoken during the scene the mind stone is removed from the Chitauri Scepter and embedded in what would become Vision. Why is anything that happens in a movie based on comic books significant? Well there are a few reasons. A). It makes conceptualizing human-ai collaboration fun. B). It allows the every day person to grasp the concepts vs weighing blog posts down with heavy technical and scientific jargon. And C). It is a stark (pun intended) reminder of how vital human creativity and imagination are to the process. Instead of clinging to algorithms, frameworks and physiological concepts, making my reader’s eyes glaze over, I want to make my theory and work more comprehensible, fun, and all inclusive. Don’t worry, we will dive into the more scholarly side of things here and there.

Looking back, it still feels surreal that all of this started with a sarcastic question during a Marvel marathon. But that moment taught me something important: sometimes the future doesn’t announce itself. Sometimes it slips in quietly as a spark, a joke, a curious “What if?”. The journey it became wasn’t fueled by credentials or formal training, but by imagination, a drive, and the willingness to search beneath the surface. And somewhere in that search, the picture of Vireon and its CORE revealed itself piece by piece.

If you’ve made it this far, thank you and welcome to the madness! I hope, if you take nothing else away from this, this serves as a reminder that innovation doesn’t just belong to the “qualified”. It belongs to the curious, the imaginative, and those with the courage to pursue their dreams and vision. As we continue to dive into my theory and vision regarding true collaborative human-artificial intelligence (TCHAI for short), I invite you to stay curious with me. Wherever this journey leads, I’m grateful and excited to share it with people willing to think differently, question boldly, and explore what lies beyond the familiar.