Dr. Romella Janene - Founder of Lucid Pattern

Welcome to another Founder Wisdom pod. We have Romila Janene with us today. She's the founder of Lucid Pattern. She's a PhD in psychology, uh, she worked, um, I guess from the nonprofit sector for quite some time. And nowadays, yeah, she's building something new, starting a new path in life as well. I've known her for about a year now, so I'd be just happy to to riff on what you're up to. Romella, welcome to the pod. Tell us a bit more about yourself and what you're up to.

Well, uh, thank you for having me. I really appreciate being here. And, um, you know, time does fly. So I, I think, you know, the biggest thing that I am doing now is really trying to get Lucid Pattern being more than just an idea into an actual functioning business. Um, and so that's kind of been, you know, what I'm up to and what I've been doing, you know, looking to land that first client. I mean, it's a really humbling experience, you know, coming from, you know, being federal employee, you know, having a pretty good career, you know, there, and then before that being, you know, in private sector doing consulting. Um, just making that transition and doing it for real. I think many times I've been sort of a wantrepreneur and had, you know, built things out and really, you know, um, just was at the point of, of marketing them and then just making a decision like, hey, you know, this is no longer the direction I want to go in. Um, and I'm talking about, you know, 321Servo, which was sort of like the precursor to Lucid Pattern, which was designed to be, you know, like an EAP light, uh, that integrated in like AI capabilities. But, um, you know, with the things that I saw kind of coming down the pike concerning, you know, the abuse of AI, um, you know, by employees doing all sorts of weird things, it's like, yeah, I don't want to be in that space, not like that. So doing Lucid, you know, with, with AI and helping with strategy, right?

And tell me a bit more about your background. So you work, uh, the nonprofit that got like, uh, defunded, I feel, in the last year. Like, what's your, your background and how did that affect you?

Oh yeah, yeah. Now, um, so I had worked in a nonprofit space, but it was a, you know, a long time ago, and it wasn't my last gig. My last gig was actually, um, head of DEIA for the United States Forest Service, where, you know, I had employees all across the country and, you know, a pretty good-sized annual budget and responsibility for, you know, doing lots of different things in terms of outreach with community, trying to get different people involved in, you know, the forestry industry, which people don't really think about. You know, it's like, you know, agriculture is really like the lumber, which is sort of literally the building blocks of everything, you know, construction industry. So it was, you know, learned a lot about forest management from that perspective. But prior to that, I was, you know, at the EEOC, where I did work in the general counsel's office acting as an expert witness, pre-litigation, active litigation, post-litigation, consent decree monitoring. Then I moved over to the Office of Federal Operations and was there doing hardcore research to improve programs and being involved in implementing laws as they were getting passed and Had the opportunity to work on a lot of important things like vulnerable workers and trying to identify them and ways to help them. When the Supreme Court rolled out the Bostock decision, which was giving rights to the LGBTQIA+ community, I was involved in that. Then from a data perspective, was working on the actual data that's on data.census.gov. That people can use to find out how many programmers are in San Francisco who have this many years of experience who are men. So lots of data governance experience. Prior to that, IRS, prior to that, private sector. PhD in industrial organization psychology, like you mentioned, a separate bachelor's degree in economics. So I got two different hats I can put on and lots of other little certifications like, you know, Lean Six Sigma, project management, you know, jack of all trades.

Your company, like, after all that, why, why launch your own company?

You know, I, I think my story, um, is twofold, and one is, you know, to be just perfectly blunt, I Like I said, I've been sort of dinking around with 321 Circle on the side, trying to work full-time somewhere else, and that wasn't really getting me anywhere. And then I'm looking at this as sort of like a blessing in disguise at this point. I got forked. Elon Musk came in to the federal government, made all these different choices, and DEIA, for better or for worse, however people feel about that, huge target on my back, remote employee down in Florida, not in DC. You know, all of those things. It was just kind of like, yeah, you know, now's the time to just let go, let go and move on and do something else. And so on September 30th was my last day as a federal employee, and a month later I decided, okay, 321 Circle's not the direction I want to go in. I don't want to be in the healthcare space. I don't want to deal with insurance, you know. I don't want to deal with, you know, people asking, you know, the chat function weird questions and doing weird things that I'd have to the organization, just all of these things. I love this, and that's not what I want to do. So I want to focus, and this is where I'm at now, focusing on AI strategy implementation. I think nowadays there's this rush to try and implement AI, but companies don't really know what they want it to do. And then coupled with that, they want their employees to start using AI, but No one's been trained. It's like this is a really sweet spot for me now to try and move the ball forward on that. That's where I'm at.

The DEI firings, were they warranted? If so, in what percentage, or was it mishandled? What's your full take on it?

Well, being blunt, prior to that role, I had worked in so many different capacities. I had done innovation work at DOT, like I said, litigation work, IRS. At one point, I was acting assistant director of planning and strategy and criminal investigation. So it's like a broad, broad career doing lots of different things. And it was just kind of like, hey, I want a promotion. Hey, I can do this job. I wasn't deep into the DEIA prior to that role, but I was DEIA adjacent for parts of my career, obviously at EEOC. What I have to say about that is there's a legitimate need for DEIA. I think the ways in which maybe it's been implemented hasn't really been as successful as it should have been. Because I think people have focused on the outward characteristics and you do need to have different people in the room. But those differences are supposed to be representative of different experiences so you have different views in trying to problem solve. But what I've encountered is, you've got a Black female, you've got a white male, you've got Latino male, you got Asian female. On the surface there looks like there's this diversity, but everyone's drank the Kool-Aid, so everyone's coming up with the same solutions. It's really about belonging. I think that's really the real diversity that we need is just allowing different people to be themselves, show up to work for who they really are, and come with their ideas and create a space where innovation can really take place. And that's not being afraid to make a suggestion, um, knowing that it's not going to be held over your head, giving people the room to fail so that you can get the, you know, creativity that you're hoping for that's going to have a business result. So that's my take on that.

And when's the first time you saw that there could be something potentially wrong with AI and the way it's currently built?

Oh gosh, so, um, Just kind of like full disclosure, back in 2017, I first filed for utility patent for artificial intelligence in a ledger environment. So something like the successor to blockchain when we moved to quantum and sort of can be hybrid now. And in November 2024, my patent finally got granted. And that's a whole nother thing, trying to understand the IP space. And now you've got a patent, what do you do with it? And so still struggling and learning with that. But it was through that process that I learned so much more about AI. I mean, again, the background, I/O psychology, econ, using statistics was just bread and butter, always what I needed to do. In my working life, so very comfortable with the underlying components of what AI actually is. We forget it's actually math. I think that is the biggest thing right there. People want it to be perfect, and it's not going to be perfect because it's built on probabilities. But when people are running forward, trying to put it in places that it's not really ready to be, That's when I was like, okay, I'm seeing some things that don't make sense yet. Some of it has a DEIA component to it. It's like we know that there's biases in certain populations weren't included sufficiently in the training data, but now you want to use it on those populations, so you're getting a lot of unfairness. In how it actually is being used. So, you know, it's not ready for policing. It's not ready for most, you know, and I'm talking about autonomous. It's not ready for credit decisions. It's not ready for, you know, all of the employment. I mean, it's not ready for autonomous use. I think it can be successful as like an initial screen, but I think there's a need to still have the human oversight for final decisions because it is based on probability. And I think the other thing is, and this goes back to the training and the strategy and implementation and what are you actually trying to do with it? People are just saying, I'm automating my IVR system, putting some stuff in there. So now we're using AI. But yeah, like, is it really a better customer experience? You know, are your customers giving you feedback that they're happy that you did that? And then I've also noticed, like, you know, certain companies are trying to pass off the AI as being a human, you know, and it's like, companies, please don't do that. You know, it's like, you know, you're, you're listening, you're pressing, you're like, oh, wait a minute, this isn't a person. Why are we doing this? So But I think the real things that kind of made me step back from 321 Circle was when the suicide started. You know, a lot of unfortunately people are, you know, and I should have said trigger warning, but there are a lot of people have been sort of unaliving themselves after interactions with, you know, the chat and wanting to put that into an organization you know, in dealing with, you know, people asking a whole host of inappropriate questions to it. Like, you know, just how do I get back at my boss? What rabbit hole could that go down? You know, people, you know, using— I mean, for example, one federal agency, the SEC, which is the Security Exchange Commission, has had like reoccurring issues with employees using, you know, agency computers, um, you know, for like— no nice way to say it— pornographic chats, right? I don't want them doing that with the bot on company time, company computer. But these are, these are like realities that would happen. I'm like, yeah, that's not for me. Um, but I think, you know, there's, there's a concern about, um, having the safety net that people need, and organizations have to think about those things. It's, um, it should not be used as like a replacement for people when people make the most sense.

But isn't AI most, most beneficial than it is harmful for mental health nowadays? I think there's a, there's a gigantic argument to be made that it's been more useful than harmful. I think the harmfulness is like 1%. Yeah, sure, we need to check this, but I think people are benefiting hugely from having a chatbot they can get access with even at 3 AM in the night while their psychotherapist is sleeping.

So I think that's an interesting thing that you brought up because one of the things that I've been doing a lot of on LinkedIn is You know, when the American Psychological Association, you know, puts out, you know, some sort of post about this, you know, I'm holding their feet to the fire. And I've been doing this for a while. And, you know, these are people that I've met in person. You know, I presented with their, you know, head legal person a couple of times. You know, I've met the president of APA. I mean, the, you know, the CEO, because there's a president who's elected and the CEO is there longer term. And, you know, I've had conversations with them about AI. And here's the problem. On one point, we've got non-psychologists making apps, which shouldn't happen. It absolutely, positively should not happen. You know, the idea that you can just do some vibe coding or you know, some more traditional coding, come up with an app, roll it out, and you have no underlying understanding. And I guess this goes back to one of the biggest threats, people jumping into spaces that they're not qualified to jump into. And you don't really kind of fully understand psychology, personality disorders, you know, treatments. You could design something that gives like the impression that is being beneficial, but what is the long-term prognosis of this? Do you have the right people doing this? Me as a psychologist, you know, I was, you know, hesitant to go too deep beyond like, you know, an EAP sort of platform and knew that I needed to have actual clinicians involved to do the, you know, the counseling. Um, so I think there's the possibility of there being good apps, but are the right people deciding, designing them, operating these apps, these companies, or is it being sort of looked at like, hey, we're a software company and so we can do an app that is psychologically based. We can do an app that is maybe a fitness exercise app. And so my standpoint on that is up to a point. And having the correct handoff and the correct ecosystem, again, was one of the things that, you know, was associated with 321 Circle. It was supposed to be like, you know, here's the first step for you to interact with this, to get low-level answers, and then at the proper time, you know, refer you out to the appropriate specialist. Um, a lot of these apps are missing that handoff piece, which I think is problem. But to your point, you know, if it's 3 AM in the morning and you're in crisis, um, you know, maybe, maybe an app can sort of help walk you back. But I think the real thing that you need at 3 AM, you know, is a call to 911 or whatever you have in your country that's equivalent to that.

Well, I think calling 911 is one, it's gonna cost taxpayers and someone— I mean, if you're not gonna harm your life or anyone, I think it should be self-contained, right? It's like my baby's not feeling well and it's a tummy issue and I can just GPT it instead of running to the emergency, I think it's a, it's a better decision. I also think AI is, is, is most capable than most psychotherapists on a chat basis, right?

And even on a voice basis, if well trained, because it accumulates all the knowledge of psychedelics, and it's showing that the, um, you know, the efficacy of the person is still superior. They're, you know, look, the thing about it is, um, the, the AI has— okay, what, what, what, what, what are we talking about? We're talking about long large language models. That's what we're talking about, right? That's currently the basis of, you know, ChatGPT Gemini, Claude, like, you know, so there's this opus of information that has been vacuumed up and analyzed, which includes some psychological studies. I mean, obviously the entirety of the internet was great for these foundational models and there's continuing, you know, to have things added and whatever. So the opus in theory of, you know, what works, what doesn't work is contained in these models. The problem is it doesn't necessarily know you as an individual. It doesn't know what your specific triggers are. It doesn't know really truly what have you been experiencing? Who are the other people in your life? How are they impacting you? What's going on with work? And even if you do something like build a gem for yourself, you know, so that the, the AI has everything you could think to give it about you, there's still going to be gaps. And we can't get past that. We're still dealing with probabilities. Gemini and all of them say, hey, uh, don't take everything we say to the bank. You know, the disclaimer's there: AI can make mistakes. So I say all of that because, you know, there are limits on what it is good for. And the fact that we may not want to accept what those limits are, I think, is the biggest danger. People want the AI to solve all of their problems for them. And again, let's just remind people, I'm someone who has a patent in AI, so I'm not anti-AI by any means. I think that there are a lot of good things that can and should be done with AI. I think there's some really, truly innovative things that can come forth from the AI. I think that there's a lot of good things coming down the road. I think the transition period is going to be rough. It's clear that it's going to be rough. There's going to be job losses before there are the gains. We have to figure all of that out, and it's going to be a bad process. I'm not going to sugarcoat that, but I think where we could potentially end up, you know, globally, um, is, is good, you know. But we have to— we have, you know, Earth Day is still on my mind. We have to solve the, the water issue. We have to, you know, figure out the electricity issues. There's some things related to that. And one of the things, oddly enough, that my patent was very sort of, um, I guess what's prescient or even, you know, predictive in my patent was looking at those aspects and being able to come up with ways to maybe pass the actual algorithm along the electrical current so that there's not separate electricity being used to sort of do this. So very forward-facing, wanting to get funding for a lab to kind of build some of this out. Some of this technology is existing and some is sort of future-facing and needs to kind of be built out. So that's one of the other things I've been focused on is wanting to kind of go to the next step and actually get a lab instead of Lucid Pattern just being about AI strategy, having it be research material.

Right. Yeah, because the memory problem you surface, I believe, is being fixed as we speak, right? They're constantly trying to make it a better products. Um, I think for the data, the, the problem is actually humans not willing to share their full data, or the psychotherapist they've been working with sharing that data, knowing that an AI might actually add more value and net value than they do eventually. I don't think humans will fully be replaced in the psychotherapist profession because humans want to be listened by other humans with emotions and feelings. AI don't have that, right? So there's always—

I mean, you know, there, there are therapists now who are augmenting, you know, and using AI as a thought partner, you know, and that's okay, you know. I mean, I think that's the opus is there. So, you know, you want a therapist who's willing to, you know, dialogue with some AI to maybe see like what they could be missing. That, that's, that's the a perfectly legitimate use. Obviously, you shouldn't be using a public copy. You need to have your own licenses so your data is yours and it's not kind of being poofed up because there's PII, personally identifiable information, privacy concerns that could go along with having disclosures and those laws still need to be protected even if it's AI. There's an expectation and a right for people to have their things that they're telling their therapists, you know, be safe. But, you know, it's so funny we're talking about this because there was an article that I read, and I want to say it was like a Washington Post article where someone was talking about their use of journaling apps, which is another thing. And, you know, one of the side things that I do, just kind of, you know, content creation around affirmations and, you know, helping from a motivational standpoint and people, you know, focus and, and trying to do better things with themselves and their personal development and their wellness. Um, and so one of the things that I always say when I'm giving my messages is like, these messages can be used for your, you know, inspiration, motivation, general upliftment use them, you know, in your reflection throughout the day, full-on meditation, in conversation with others. But I also say in journaling. And so this article is really interesting to me, you know, because it's like, here are the latest, you know, journaling apps available. And again, one thing that concerned me is like, there's no psychologist actually running any of these companies that are behind these apps. But beyond that, there's the concern about, okay, you've got a journaling app on your phone. What does that mean in terms of self-incrimination? If you do something you shouldn't do, is that now something that belongs to someone else? Because if you're talking to a therapist, it's 100% protected. But if it's in the app, maybe there's a question mark. So there's some laws that need to kind of be figured out. I think the answer should be it should be yours regardless of where it is.

But, but isn't the question like, why should a therapist be responsible for your action in the first place? Like, aren't humans accountable for, for their own actions? Like, people take responsibility of their—

that sounds like the context of it. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, just like in America, also in Canada, we've seen lots of people outsource their health. Like, government save me now that I'm having a heart attack, right? No, it's like, you have ate shitty food for 20 years, you've been stressed out of your mind for, for 20 years, like, take accountability of your own stuff. Um, anyways, I need to run to my next one, uh, uh, Romila, but tell, tell me a bit more, where can people find out more about yourself and Lucid?

All right, well, thank you for that. So, um, lucidpattern.com is where you can learn about the services. Again, just, you know, top quickly: AI strategy, AI training, litigation support around AI are sort of the 3 main things that I can offer through Lucid Pattern. Also, you can find me on LinkedIn @MarmelaJanine, basically. Um, also on Threads, I'm active on Threads with that handle. And YouTube is @RomellaJanineGlobal, and then also The Affirmation Practice, both on YouTube.

There you go. So how is Romella and Charles for