Building with AI Without Losing Our Humanity

By Bennett Cordon

The AI space rarely prioritizes good human writing, so that's what we're attempting here. We explore technology with genuine human curiosity, free from pretense, because we want to understand both technology and people better. If sharing our perspectives on AI's social and environmental impact encourages critical thinking about AI, we'll be fortunate to contribute to that dialogue.

Our blog posts will be 100% written by humans — which also means they'll be time-consuming to research and put together, and probably late on occasion. But as people who value real human interaction, we're using language to initiate meaningful conversations with business owners, creatives, technologists, and thought leaders from diverse backgrounds and industries.

If you haven't already noticed, we're in a bit of an AI slop era. AI has flooded our streams with massive amounts of content, stealing eyeballs from real things. This trend could extend to other areas of our lives: up-to-the-second AI-generated news cycles, podcasts, all forms of literature, and brands with the ability to self-generate precisely targeted content for their customers. Within a year or two, this will be commonplace. We won't know who is writing what—is it human or AI?

It's important to note that the once unclear boundaries of AI's potential have crystallized into stark contradictions. The excitement around daily breakthroughs stands in sharp contrast to growing concerns about the massive resources required to fuel AI development. So how do we reconcile these fears with the seemingly limitless potential for innovation and knowledge that AI represents?

It's true. Boneyard is a company made up of people who came together to solve problems and build solutions for money. Capitalism isn't new here. The fact that we keep overhead costs quite low is also not worth getting into. But the energy use of our AI engines is always a conversation.

Boneyard is a tech company. We design. We code (front end and back end). We teach. And we use AI daily in our work. We're always aware of the mechanics and energy behind all this computation, which has made us more thoughtful in how we approach AI. There's significant preparation required to use AI efficiently and achieve optimal, responsible output—and that's what we hope to get people talking about.

As a boutique company, we comfortably work with three to four clients at a time. Whether they're building their first website or structuring an entirely new entity, we never lead with AI. We focus on single-member founders and small business owners who believe in the power of a small but mighty team, so AI often becomes part of our strategy conversations.

What it comes down to is this: Digital work and AI are becoming irreversibly enmeshed, and the prospect of a homogenized digital culture concerns us. We didn't start Boneyard to jump on existing trends or "fill market gaps." Instead, we believe the greatest innovations emerge when talented people are driven by genuine curiosity. We're less interested in the hype surrounding AI and more focused on the real-world implications of combining authentic curiosity with practical execution.

To tie this back to our core themes, we'd love for you to stay connected and informed. We're entering uncharted territory as AI reshapes our economy and social patterns. How we approach our understanding of these changes will determine whether we can use AI efficiently and creatively while preserving what makes us human.

As AI becomes more prevalent, silos and human disconnect are inevitable. But we believe human connections remain crucial—you can see their importance in how we treat and listen to each other. Curiosity drives us, and when we connect with people and ideas, that's where real innovation happens.

Think we might be your kind of people? Let's talk. No sales pitch, just a conversation about what you're trying to build.