What it Means to Speak 'Techie'

I don’t have a technical background.

It’s something about me I’ve never taken pains to hide, and in fact I will even emphasize from time to time when the circumstances call for it. This means though that I am often asked how I came to learn AI, since “Artificial Intelligence According to Socrates” was never on my required reading list.

Typically, I simply respond that I grew up speaking ‘techie’ thanks to me being a native of the Silicon Valley. Although I tend to say this with a little wink and ting of humor, lately I’ve been thinking about what this personal adage really means to me.

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I speak three languages: English, Italian and French. As much as I would have loved growing up speaking all three, I wouldn’t trade learning a second and then third language later in my life for the world.

Italian came in my late teens through years of lessons and language tandems, while French was something I picked up out of survival in my early twenties. Although the circumstances under which I learned both languages looked vastly different, the outcome has been roughly the same.

Through each language I have learned, I have discovered a new facet to myself I would have never known was there otherwise.

Speaking Italian for me feels like coming home. The language is warm and full-bodied, it’s musical tones filling the air and inviting the body to dance along with it. I find that through Italian, my emotions take center stage in how I communicate, and I am more inclined to express how I am feeling rather than what I am thinking.

On the other hand, speaking French for me feels like a cool wisp of a breeze. The words brush swiftly across the tongue and the nondescript sounds used as vocabulary supplements rush in to fill the cracks on puffs of air. In French, I find myself more reserved and gentle in my expression, although I am quicker to communicate my opinion than in any other language.

At the root, I am still me no matter what language I am translating myself through at the moment. But, the corners and crevices I have discovered through the years have brought a new depth to my understanding of self, one that I now cherish and respect.

Which, all this being said, now has me thinking about what do I really mean when I say I speak ‘techie’?

On the surface, it means that I know the terms and turns of phrase that are used to describe AI and beyond. It means I can belong in a room of ML engineers, AI architects and data scientists, actively contributing to the conversation as we discuss a mix of current projects and future ideas. It means I can decipher news on the latest AI developments for myself, determining what is hype from reality.

But it also means so much more.

Learning Italian and French wasn’t just about brute force memorization of new vocabulary, struggling through sentence structures, and constantly being corrected for wildly inaccurate mispronunciations.

It was also about being absorbed into the folds of a vibrant culture, exploring new ways to communicate old ideas, finding little connections between vastly different walks of life, discovering layers of myself previously untouched, and, above all else, fundamentally shifting the lens through which I view the world.

Which, when I think about everything Italian and French have brought me, I can’t help but start to feel that maybe my joke of speaking ‘techie’ as my fourth language is actually a statement of fact thinly veiled beneath the disguise of humor.

So, in the spirit of treating this as an actual language, what does it mean to speak ‘techie’?

For me, speaking techie is a like a hard-won battle cry. Its sharp tones are laced with determination, built to convey a sense of confidence and curiosity in the horizons yet conquered.

Perhaps I’m influenced by my philosophical dialect, but when I speak ‘techie’ the only way I can think to describe the lens this language gives me is that it is a raw hope for a brighter future, one which I am hell bent on fighting for.

What does speaking ‘techie’ mean for you?

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