I’m a retired engineer, and I love music.
After I retired, I realized something surprising: I was tired of just listening to music. I wanted to make it. The problem was, I don’t have much musical talent. I tried the guitar. I tried the piano. I even tried the saxophone. None of it really stuck.
What I did have was a computer full of software that could make beautiful sounds. So I tried composing. That didn’t go very well either.
Then one evening it occurred to me—music is made of patterns. And patterns are something computers are very good at. Maybe the computer could help me.
I experimented with a lot of different tools. Eventually, a friend suggested I try artificial intelligence. I was skeptical. Like many people, I’d heard plenty of negative things about AI, and much of it gave me pause.
Instead of signing up for one of the big platforms, I decided to build my own. I trained it to help me with the specific problem I cared about: making music.
Something unexpected happened.
What began as a personal hobby slowly turned into something more useful. I customized the system for my wife to help with genealogy research. My son, who’s a student pilot, uses it to help create flight plans. Friends started asking if it could help them think through their own projects.
Before long, this “little thing” had become something much bigger than I ever planned.
Today, that project is called Secure AI Systems. It offers two kinds of assistants: one for quick questions and everyday help, and another for longer-term projects that require deeper thinking and organization. Being a science fiction fan, I named them HAL and SAL, after the computers in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
People can log in to their own private, customizable AI assistant using any web browser—on a PC, Mac, tablet, or phone—and use it to help solve real-world problems involving ideas and information.
I built this system differently on purpose.
We don’t sell your data. We don’t train models on your conversations. We don’t keep your chats. Your information stays private and encrypted. Payment is handled through PayPal, and that’s it.
Frankly, I was uncomfortable with the direction much of the AI industry was heading—massive data centers, opaque data practices, and users treated as raw material. This project is my answer to that trend. Our data center is small, efficient, and engineered to use far less power than the giants. Your data isn’t scattered across some vast facility—it’s handled carefully, or not kept at all.
Secure AI Systems is a small, family-run business. We understand that people have questions, and we’re happy to answer them.
If you’re curious about AI but want something more personal, more private, and more grounded, we offer a 30-day free trial of the HAL assistant. (We don’t allow users under 18—any powerful tool requires maturity and care.)
If you’d like to explore, visit https://SecureAISystems.ai and try the live demos. They use the real system, not canned examples.
And if you do decide to give it a try, keep in mind the question my wife always asks me:
What’s your problem?