Expert Systems, Agent Risk & the Fixer Economy

Co-founder, MakeBell. Engineer-turned-lawyer at the intersection of AI, IP, and digital evidence. Long before AI became a boardroom imperative, Ron was asking: what happens when law governs technologies it doesn't fully understand? With a mechanical engineering background, multiple postgraduate law degrees, and experience as a computer forensics examiner, systems engineer, and co-inventor on patents in EdTech, AI, and IP tokenization. Former roles at IBM, Hewlett-Packard, Wang Laboratories, and Federal Express. Advisor to WIPO Green. Visiting Fellow and lecturer at City University of HK School of Law and CUHK.

Chapters

1. 0:00Intro
2. 1:30Bronx Science reunion — school food & subway war stories
3. 4:08Equal opportunity horror stories — Paris & Hong Kong
4. 6:58Wang Labs 1986 — how Ronald landed in Hong Kong
5. 8:21Setting up email in the 1980s — half an hour per message
6. 9:43FedEx Singapore — the client-server rebellion against mainframes
7. 13:32Product localization — translating DOS commands into Thai
8. 17:15Computer forensics — grabbing hard drives for court
9. 18:29Why Ronald went into law — "to tell stupid lawyers to fuck off"
10. 22:10RPI to IBM — meeting Craig Newmark before Craigslist
11. 23:56MakeBell — "Make Better, Easier, Less Liable"
12. 25:15Expert systems to generative AI — the symbolic-to-neuro arc
13. 28:53Loaded dice and Beethoven — explaining AI weights
14. 32:07Teaching AI law — quantum computing, IP valuation
15. 37:09Assessing students in the GPT era — the oral exam trick
16. 45:47Brevity as intelligence — the vanilla ice cream test
17. 47:01Congee as the Cantonese vanilla test — two kinds of rice
18. 50:45From 1980s email to 2025 AI — Ronald's long view
19. 53:12Vibe coding will break at enterprise scale
20. 54:52The "fixer economy" — the next cottage industry
21. 55:56ARA-eVals — open source agent risk assessment
22. 1:00:05Mr. Wolf and the fixers — the future is bright
23. 1:00:57Outro

About This Episode

Ronald's tech career predates AI being a boardroom imperative by decades — IBM (on the same GM manufacturing team as pre-Craigslist Craig Newmark), Wang Labs, HP, FedEx Singapore (where the client-server system later used for Apple/Foxconn supply chain was first architected), then computer forensics, then law. He co-founded MakeBell with Kenneth and teaches AI Law at CityU and CUHK. We dig into the symbolic-to-generative-to-neurosymbolic arc, why vibe-coded agents will break at enterprise scale (and the coming "fixer economy" for cleanup specialists), and one oral-exam trick for assessing students in the GPT era.