AI headlines make bold claims — curing all diseases in a decade, accelerating medical breakthroughs, even slowing aging. Are these promises pure hype, or is something real changing beneath the surface?

In this episode of aiGED, Ginny Deerin takes a clear, non-technical look at why the excitement around AI and medicine isn’t as far-fetched as it may sound. Rather than surveying AI in healthcare broadly, she focuses on one pivotal scientific breakthrough — AlphaFold — to explain how AI has dramatically expanded what scientists can see and understand about biology.

Ginny walks listeners through why protein shape matters, how AI moved science from understanding less than 1% of known protein structures to nearly all of them, and why this kind of shift represents a change in what’s possible — not just a faster version of the old way of doing things.

The episode also explores why medical progress still requires time, testing, and regulation, even as AI accelerates discovery.

Thoughtful, grounded, and designed especially for the 65+ audience, this episode helps make sense of the hype — and the reality — behind AI’s growing role in science and medicine.

SHOW NOTES

AlphaFold

AI in the News

• Recent article by Jasmine Sun, published on January 3rd in The New York Times, titled “Chinese Peptides Are the Latest Biohacking Trend in the Tech World.” The subtitle says it all: “The gray-market drugs flooding Silicon Valley reveal a community that believes it can move faster than the F.D.A.”
• “What AI Won’t Replace: The 2026 Growth Edition - The Jobs & Skills That Are Actually Growing (While Others Disappear)” by Rohan Mistry in The Medium.

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

Can AI really help with something as personal as what to wear? In this episode of aiGED, I put ChatGPT to the test as a personal stylist, wardrobe planner, and packing assistant for a winter holiday trip. I share my real, unscripted experience — from debating whether an outfit even made sense, to organizing clothes by day, to creating a packing list I could finally stop thinking about. Along the way, I also break down findings from a major new research study on how people actually use ChatGPT in everyday life. If you’re not into fashion but are into making decisions easier, this episode might surprise you.

🧠 AI in the News & Research Spotlight

Study: How People Use ChatGPT — National Bureau of Economic Research (Working Paper No. 34255)

📄 Read the full paper (PDF): https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w34255/w34255.pdf

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

In this episode, Ginny Deerin and her sidekick Bitsy take on one of the biggest upgrades to ChatGPT yet: it can finally look things up on the internet. For real. Ginny explains why this matters, how the new search feature works, and what it means for everyday tasks—like checking ferry schedules, getting updated Medicare information, finding the best price on a Kindle, or surprising a Georgia football fan.

This week’s AI in the News includes two stories from The New York Times: one on how AI is reshaping holiday shopping, and another on a Boston College professor who redesigned his classroom to work with AI—not against it. Bitsy jumps in to help explain “scaffolding of ideas” and keeps things moving in her usual bright and inquisitive way.

Ginny also tackles a listener question about “creating your own Bitsy” and shows why many people are overthinking voice mode entirely. (Spoiler: you already have a Bitsy.)

For Recommendations, Ginny introduces the concept of AI “SLOP”—low-quality, AI-generated junk that’s creeping into everything from recipes to Buckingham Palace Christmas markets. She also shares news about the upcoming “Optimism in AI” course she’ll be teaching at the Charleston Library Society as part of their Life-Long Learning Series.

Your homework this week: start noticing SLOP when you see it—and send in the funniest or scariest examples.

As always, Ginny ends with a reminder that AI can be incredibly helpful, but it still requires good judgment, a light touch, and a sense of humor. Perfect for the 65-plus crowd who want to use AI with confidence and curiosity.

Links:

Blundstone. https://www.blundstone.com/?srsltid=AfmBOorTNlJGQ__wlNsO4OjBQAZamIRf01kPInRG8ib0SfP6H7_Qyerb

AI in the News

“A.I. Can Do More of Your Shopping This Holiday Season” published November 25th in the New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/technology/chatgpt-holiday-shopping.html

“I’m a Professor. A.I. Has Changed My Classroom, but Not for the Worse” published November 25th in the New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/11/25/magazine/ai-higher-education-students-teachers.html

Recommendations

Hard Fork Podcast (SLOP piece begins at 39:00 minutes)

• YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vbFXpD7Ozf0
• Podcast - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/hard-fork/id1528594034?i=1000739844481

BBC story: “Tourists tricked by fake Royal Christmas market.” https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/c4gjgwll6glo

Charleston Library Society – Ginny’s 4-week in-person class. https://charlestonlibrarysociety.org/event/life-long-learning-optimism-in-ai-four-week-course/

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd