Your AI skills are about to take off.
“You're not behind because you're incapable. The interface to computers changed in the last three years, and nobody sent a memo.”
Practical AI training for competent adults: free lectures, hands-on labs, and a curriculum you can read in full before you give us an evening.
You're doing it the slow way, and you know it
Somewhere in your week there are hours going to work a well-run computer would do in minutes — the pile of reading you keep avoiding, the message you've answered forty times, the report you assemble by hand every month. It nags because it should.
And the gap compounds. The people getting real leverage from these machines aren't smarter than you — they started a loop you haven't started yet: every session teaches the next one. Every month on the sidelines, the distance grows. That's the honest, slightly uncomfortable pitch.
Everything we teach runs in my house
I run a small household publishing operation here in Bend. An assistant reads the inbox and drafts replies. Research pipelines finish before I wake up. Websites ship in an afternoon. None of it was built to impress a room — it's just how this house works now, and every bit of it gets demonstrated live.
Which sets the school's whole personality: every capability is shown with its price tag — privacy, money, and the ways this stuff fails. If a tradeoff would make you say "never," we'll say so before you connect a thing.
Why “pilot”?
The name is a wink, but the analogy is load-bearing: AI is a high-powered machine, and using one well is a trained skill — controls, instruments, checklists, judgment. You don't need to build the plane. You need to learn to run it. That's teachable, and it's the entire business of this school.
What you'll learn
Module 1 · Your Computer Can Do That Now
What these machines can actually do for you — five levels, proven live, tradeoffs included.
Module 2 · Flying Lessons
The ideal workflow: use AI to improve your AI — the loop that makes every session smarter than the last.
Module 3 · Airmanship
Usage habits: six disciplines that decide whether the machine sharpens you or replaces you.
Module 1 in one breath:
What you get
The first lecture
FreeModule 1, live: real demonstrations, honest tradeoffs, and one Monday-morning action matched to you. 75 minutes plus questions.
The complete course materials
Free — already publishedAll three modules, the lab manual, the deck, the handout. Open source. Read every word before you decide we're worth an evening. Browse the materials →
Hands-on labs
Small groups — priced when scheduledYou arrive with a laptop; you leave with a working AI assistant installed, one real task done, and a habit for keeping the gains. Eight seats, one instructor, nobody left behind.
The build workshop
$75For the ones who want to make software: a working session on specifying the thing you actually want built. See the workshop →
Fair questions
“I'm not technical.”
Good — you're exactly who this is for. The first lab legitimately begins at "which of these icons is the browser," and nobody blinks.
“Is my data safe?”
It depends what you connect, and that decision gets its own segment. Short version: we teach you to decide by category, and we show a keep-it-at-home option for the things that should never leave your house.
“What does this cost?”
The lecture and every page of the materials are free. Money only enters if you want the small-group labs or the build workshop — and nothing we teach requires buying anything to start.
“When is the first session?”
Being scheduled now. The list hears first — that's the whole reason it exists.
Get on the list
First sessions are being scheduled now. Nothing is on the calendar yet — join the list and you'll hear before anyone else.