In this episode of aiGED, we explore what happens when artificial intelligence starts operating with less human guidance — and why that matters.

In AI in the News, we look at two very different but equally revealing stories. First, NASA’s Perseverance rover completes a historic milestone on Mars by planning and driving its own route using AI — a powerful example of systems that can see, reason, and act independently in high-stakes environments. Then we turn back to Earth to talk about political deepfakes, digital literacy, and the growing challenge known as the “liar’s dividend,” where the existence of AI allows people to dismiss real evidence as fake.

For the main topic, we take a closer look at Moltbook — a social network designed not for humans, but for AI agents. On Moltbook, AI systems post, respond, and even upvote one another, while humans are invited to observe. We unpack what an AI agent actually is, why this platform exists, and why watching AI talk to AI feels fascinating, funny, and just a little unsettling.

We also tackle an important question: could conversational AI like Bitsy participate in a space like Moltbook on its own? The answer reveals a lot about the difference between helpful AI tools and truly autonomous agents.

Finally, I share a practical recommendation I’ve been using myself — an AI-powered iPhone feature that quietly screens spam calls before your phone ever rings. It’s a perfect example of AI doing exactly what we want it to do: reducing everyday friction.

As always, we stay on the helpful side of AI — curious, informed, and grounded.

SHOW NOTES

AI Takes the Wheel on Mars
February 2, 2026 | ScienceDaily / NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory

The “Liar’s Dividend” and Digital Literacy
February 3, 2026 | Associated Press – reporting by Garance Burke and Ali Swenson
 

Moltbook: https://www.moltbook.com/

IPhone “Ask Reason for Calling” Feature - How to enable it:
Settings → Apps → Phone → Screen Unknown Callers → Ask Reason for Calling

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

In this episode of aiGED, I take a clear-eyed look at the three chatbots most people are actually using: ChatGPT, Claude, and Gemini.

I’ve been using all three side by side for the past few weeks — not as a technologist, but as a regular person who wants AI to be helpful, understandable, and maybe even enjoyable. I share what each one does well, where they fall short, and why I still have a favorite.

We also start with two thoughtful AI in the News stories:

·       One from Scientific American on how AI is helping scientists understand the “dark matter” of our DNA — work that could lead to breakthroughs in genetic disease. Link.

·       Another from Bloomberg, featuring an interview with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, who offers a smart and sober take on AI’s economic impact, job disruption, and the risks of moving too fast without guardrails. Link.

If you’ve ever wondered which chatbot is right for you — or whether any of them are worth your time — this episode is for you.

HOMEWORK

Get a free account for Claude and kick the tires yourself. Link: Claude.ai

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

In this episode of aiGED, Ginny Deerin takes on a topic that can feel unsettling at first: AI companions.

Are they unnecessary? A poor substitute for family? Or could they be something else entirely?

Ginny looks at the reality facing millions of older adults — including social isolation, solo aging, and long hours spent alone — and asks a harder question: for many people, is the choice really between AI and a loved one… or between AI and silence?

Along the way, Ginny also explores:

• how AI is quietly improving weather forecasting during winter storms,
• why voice mode in ChatGPT sometimes works beautifully and sometimes doesn’t,
• and how switching between the app and the browser can make AI more usable (and less frustrating).

She wraps up with practical recommendations, including why exploring GPTs inside ChatGPT can be one of the easiest ways to make AI genuinely helpful in everyday life.

Thoughtful, honest, and grounded in real experience, this episode invites listeners to replace judgment with curiosity — and to consider how AI-powered tools might support connection, creativity, and comfort when human connection isn’t always available.

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

Ginny Deerin, host of aiGED, reads the story meant for the toddler crowd. It was generated by AI after I gave it some information about my grandson.

In "The Great Skate-Off on Saturn’s Rings," Charlie becomes a hero astronaut who travels to space in a high-powered Tractor-Rocket to save a group of frozen LEGO robots.

Armed with his magic guitar and a pair of Super-Silver Ice Skates, he glides across the frozen rings of Saturn. Every time he plays a powerful "Power Chord," his silver blades carve glowing LEGO tracks into the ice, bringing the robots back to life. It is an action-packed adventure that celebrates bravery, music, and the magic of a perfectly executed "Super-Spin" across the stars.

It's about 8 minutes.

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

Ginny Deerin, host of aiGED, reads the story meant for the toddler crowd. It was generated by AI after I gave it some information about my grandson.

In this gentle story, a boy spends the day building a Lego tower that doesn’t go as planned. By trying again and learning what works, he ends the day proud, calm, and ready for tomorrow.

It's about 5 minutes.

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

Email suddenly feel different? You’re not imagining it — Gmail has quietly changed.

In this episode, Ginny Deerin breaks down what’s new inside Gmail, what features are free, what you only get if you pay for Gemini Pro, and — most importantly — where to look so Gmail actually works for you again.

Before diving into Gmail, Ginny also covers two timely AI news stories that explain why these changes are happening now — and why AI is starting to show up everywhere.

🔍 AI in the News

Ads Are Coming to ChatGPT

OpenAI has announced it’s testing ads inside ChatGPT for free and budget-tier users. Paid subscribers are supposed to remain ad-free — but Ginny shares why she’s skeptical and what this shift says about the rising cost of AI.

AI Is Becoming the Invisible Layer of Shopping

Retailers are rapidly adopting AI — from smart carts and checkout systems to product recommendations and loss prevention. Reporting from The New York Times shows how companies like Google and Instacart are shaping what we see, buy, and sometimes even pay — often without us realizing it.

📧 Main Topic: What’s Actually New in Gmail

Ginny walks through Gmail’s AI features step by step, with real examples and no jargon:

What You Get for Free

• Email thread summaries (a lifesaver for long family or group emails)
• “Help Me Write” — AI-assisted drafting that helps you get started, not just fix typos

What Changes If You Pay for Gemini Pro

• Access to the Gemini sidebar inside Gmail
• The ability to ask full questions instead of searching by keywords
• Faster answers pulled directly from your inbox

The One Thing to Remember

The search bar is for keywords

• Gemini (if you have it) is for questions

Ginny also talks candidly about permissions and privacy — what you have to allow, what you can turn off, and how she personally thinks about the tradeoffs.

🎧 Bonus Content: ChatGPT vs. Gemini (Toddler Edition)

Ginny put two AI tools head-to-head by asking them to write short audio stories for her toddler grandson:

• ChatGPT: The Lego Tower
• Gemini: The Great Skate-Off on Saturn’s Rings

Both stories are available as bonus audio on the aiGED podcast feed. Even if you don’t have a toddler, take a listen and decide who won.

📝 Homework

If you use Gmail:

• Notice what AI features you already have
• Try summaries and “Help Me Write”
• Look for (or don’t look for!) the Gemini sidebar
• Decide whether a paid subscription is worth it for you

If you enjoyed this episode, please leave a rating or review — and share it with a friend, especially someone in the 65+ crowd who’s wondering why their email suddenly feels different.

Remember: it’s never too late to learn something new — especially when it makes life easier.

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

In this episode of aiGED, the podcast about AI for the 65-plus crowd, we explore how artificial intelligence is already woven into everyday healthcare — often in ways we don’t notice.

Using cataract surgery as a real-world example, Ginny walks through the experience from diagnosis to recovery, highlighting where AI plays a role behind the scenes: imaging, decision support, scheduling, instructions, and follow-up care. The takeaway isn’t technical — it’s practical. Understanding where AI is helping can make medical experiences feel less confusing and more manageable.

The episode also includes AI in the News, featuring a recent story that raises serious questions about AI, consent, and responsibility — a reminder that AI can be both helpful and hazardous.

As always, aiGED focuses on real life, plain language, and building confidence — especially for listeners who didn’t grow up with this technology but are curious about how it affects their lives today.

SHOW NOTES

The New York Times entitled “Grok, Elon Musk’s A.I., Is Generating Sexualized Images of Real People, Fueling Outrage” it’s by Kate Conger, published January 9th. 

The Guardian (Paul MacInnes, published January 7th,) entitled:
World Cup players to have lifelike ‘AI avatars’ for use in VAR offside decisions

Netflix documentary: Cover-Up 

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

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