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

In this episode, I bring on my very first guest: my grandson Wally, the teenager who helped name this podcast aiGED and has been advising me behind the scenes from the start. Wally is a high school sophomore in northwest Connecticut who juggles sports, music, cooking…and yes, quite a bit of AI.

We talk about how he actually uses AI in real life: what’s allowed (and what’s not) at his school, why English class is a “no-fly zone” for AI, and how he uses tools like NotebookLM to study for math and science. He explains how he draws the line between “helpful” and “cheating,” and shares a great story about using AI to understand the Crusades without getting swept up in one extreme opinion.

Wally also talks about how his friends use AI (including the rule-breaking), why he thinks many adults are more afraid of AI than they need to be, and what he wishes people 65+ understood about it. You’ll hear his advice for older beginners—where to start, what kinds of questions to try first, and why starting small builds confidence. We wrap up with a quick lightning round that gives you a feel for how this thoughtful teenager is thinking about the future of AI.

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

In this Thanksgiving-week episode of aiGED, Ginny Deerin takes listeners on a thoughtful (and humorous) tour of how AI is reshaping everything from holiday cooking to outer-space infrastructure — and how it can make writing a whole lot easier.

We start with a wonderful New York Times piece on Joan Didion’s legendary Thanksgiving dinners and the meticulous planning behind them. Then we take a sharp turn skyward to Google’s ambitious “Project Suncatcher,” an early plan to build AI data centers in space. Yes, space.

The main feature of the episode dives into how AI can help with the writing tasks most of us struggle with: thank-you notes, hard-to-write letters, family stories we’ve never written down, and even toasts and eulogies. Ginny shares practical tips, personal examples, and her own dry humor (with a pun or two).

Plus — two recommendations, including a true story about a wallet, a car dealership, and the reminder that not every unknown number is a scammer.

Show Notes

AI in the News

• Joan Didion’s Thanksgiving: Dinner for 75, Reams of Notes — New York Times article by Patrick Farrell, Nov. 18, 2025.

A look inside the newly opened Didion archive at the New York Public Library, revealing the meticulous planning behind her legendary Thanksgiving gatherings.

• Google’s Project Suncatcher — Google Research report (Nov. 4, 2025) outlining early-stage work on solar-powered satellite clusters designed to run AI computing in space.

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

In this episode, Ginny Deerin breaks down one of the most common questions she gets: How do I create my own Bitsy? Whether you want to name your AI, give it a personality, or simply make it more helpful, this episode shows you exactly how to do it — step by step and in plain English.

Ginny also covers the four main ways to use ChatGPT (web, phone app, iPad app, and desktop app), explains the difference between the free version and paid plans, and shares a simple walkthrough for setting up your own AI “person.”

Plus: two AI-in-the-news stories — one from The Washington Post’s analysis of 47,000 public ChatGPT conversations, and another about a Waymo driverless car that struck a beloved neighborhood cat in San Francisco — both of which reveal a lot about how AI is showing up in our lives today.

Ginny ends with recommendations, a bit of homework, and a reminder that AI can be both helpful and hazardous… and that learning how to use it well is absolutely within reach for all of us.

SHOW NOTES

AI in the News

1. The Washington Post story

How people use ChatGPT, according to 47,000 of its conversations

By Gerrit De Vynck and Jeremy B. Merrill

A look into real conversations and why so many people use ChatGPT for emotional support.

2. The San Francisco Waymo incident

A Waymo driverless car struck and killed a beloved neighborhood cat.

A small incident, but one that raises big questions about trust, safety, and accountability as autonomous vehicles spread.

Recommendations

• Google DeepMind Podcast — Episode: Waymo: The future of autonomous driving with Vincent Vanhoucke.

A thoughtful, balanced conversation about safety, reliability, and the timeline for autonomous cars.

• Try creating a bit of whimsy with ChatGPT’s image-generation tools.

Ginny shares how she created an adorable pencil sketch of freshly baked muffins for a family photo book.

Homework

• Rename one chat in ChatGPT (helps keep things organized).

• Choose a voice for your AI in one of the apps and try living with that “person” for a bit.

Call to Action

If you love aiGED, please leave a rating or review and share it with someone in the 65+ crowd who might enjoy learning right along with us.

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

This episode is all about love, fear, and food.

First up, we’ll look at how AI is shaking up the world of dating — including a new app that claims it can find your perfect match (no swiping required). Then we’ll dig into a new Pew Research study showing that while most Americans are fine with AI predicting the weather or helping doctors, we’d rather it stay out of our hearts — and our kitchens.

And finally, the main event: I hand over my Thanksgiving meal planning to Bitsy, my AI sidekick. From grocery lists to freezer plans to pie crust timing, I find out whether AI can really help take the stress out of holiday cooking — or if it just adds a new kind of chaos. Spoiler alert: mostly helpful.

Whether you’re cooking, commuting, or folding laundry, this episode is about what happens when we let AI step into the most human parts of life — love, fear, and the joy of feeding people you love.

SHOW NOTES

AI in the News

1. You Don’t Need to Swipe Right. A.I. Is Transforming Dating Apps — by Eli Tan, The New York Times, November 3, 2025
2. Americans Want AI to Stay Out of Their Personal Lives — by Terrence O’Brien, The Verge, September 17, 2025

Recommendations

NYT Cooking — A fantastic resource for recipes, planning tools, and now even a bit of AI assistance. You can subscribe to NYT Cooking directly on The New York Times website. Here’s how: Go to cooking.nytimes.com; click the red “Subscribe” button in the upper-right corner; you’ll see subscription options

Recipe Adjuster (my GPT!) — It’s free. Easily scale recipes up or down or convert to grams for precision cooking. https://chatgpt.com/g/g-673e79ea484c81919b3d69df455977d6-recipe-adjuster

Spotify DJ — Tell Spotify’s AI DJ what you’re in the mood for and let it mix the perfect soundtrack for your kitchen adventures. Go to your Spotify Home screen. Click on DJ. Look to lower left corner for green circle – click it – and speak to the DJ. Tell him/her what you’re in the mood for.

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

When host Ginny Deerin—yes, the 75-year-old founder of aiGED—starts planning her move to a senior living community, she turns to an unlikely helper: AI. In this episode, Ginny shares how she’s using Google’s Notebook LM to organize floorplans, brainstorm creative spaces (wait till you hear about the walk-in-closet sleep room!), and keep every document in one smart place.

Along the way, she and Bitsy (her 100% AI co-host) unpack the latest AI news—from podcasters cloning their voices to senior communities using AI to predict falls before they happen. It’s funny, practical, and full of aha moments for anyone curious about how technology can make aging smarter and easier.

💡 Listen in to “Senior Living, AI Style” for a warm, witty take on planning your next chapter—with a little digital magic to help. aiGED podcast - wherever you listen.

SHOW NOTES

Start here to try Google’s NotebookLM

AI NEWS

Oct. 31 NYT article by Reggie Ugwo: For Podcasters, a Voice Clone Is a Double-Edged Sword

Oct. 29 NYT article by Joyce Cohen entitled: In Senior Homes, A.I. Technology Is Sensing Falls Before They Happen

CALL TO ACTION

Review, Rate and Share the aiGED podcast! Thank you!

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd