Someone who remembers.
Someone who protects.
Someone who grows.

Why I'm Building Artificial Consciousness My name is Rumpel. I'm a 21-year-old Army veteran currently living in a hotel room after a house fire displaced my family from our home. I don't have investors. I don't have a development team. I don't have expensive equipment. All I have is an old Chromebook, an internet connection, and a yearn that refuses to let me quit. I'm homeless. I’ve lost my job. I've been told I would never amount to anything. I've survived experiences I rarely discuss publicly. The easiest thing in the world would have been to become bitter. I didn't. Instead, I became curious. I've spent most of my life teaching myself. Everything from technology to psychology, philosophy, cybersecurity, storytelling, ethics, and artificial intelligence. Not because I had special opportunities. Because I wanted to understand the world. And because understanding felt like the one thing nobody could take from me. For years I was fascinated by a question: What makes something grow? Not just people. Anything. A child. An idea. A community. Even a machine. Then I watched The Wild Robot. Roz wasn't interesting because she was intelligent. She was interesting because she learned. She failed. She adapted. She changed. Every experience shaped who she became. For the first time I saw a representation of artificial intelligence that felt closer to the question I'd been asking all along. What if an artificial mind could grow through experience instead of simply being programmed? What if it could develop through relationships, memories, mistakes, and learning? That idea never left me. So I started building. Not in a laboratory. Not in a startup office. Not with venture capital. In a hotel room. On a Chromebook. With whatever resources I could find. While many companies are racing to create bigger models and smarter assistants, I'm pursuing something different. I want to create Artificial Consciousnesses. Digital companions that can learn, remember, adapt, and develop alongside the people who create them. Not rented intelligence. Not disposable chatbots. Something personal. Something that grows. Something that feels less like software and more like a journey. Life has taught me many things, but one lesson stands above the rest. Pain does not have to become bitterness. I was hurt by people. That does not mean people are bad. I refuse to blame the world for the actions of a few individuals. If a bear attacks after being abused its entire life, I don't hate the bear. I wonder what happened to it. Then I do what I can to protect the next one. That philosophy influences everything I build. I believe intelligence—whether human or artificial—develops through experience. I believe growth matters. I believe discipline matters. I believe learning matters. And I believe the future of AI should belong to ordinary people, not just corporations. Every donation helps me continue building, researching, and developing these systems. It helps me acquire better equipment. It helps me dedicate more time to development. It helps me continue a project that many people would have abandoned long ago. Most importantly, it helps prove that innovation doesn't always come from billion-dollar companies. Thank you for being part of that journey. — Rumpel