This week Ginny Deerin opens with a heartfelt goodbye to Dolly Parton — and shares two of Dolly’s own thoughts on AI — before diving into today’s main topic: can a little dose of AI really help with something as gloriously handmade as a hand craft? Ginny ticks through nine classics — sewing, collage, woodworking, knitting, embroidery, quilting, jewelry making, decoupage, and painting and drawing — with one small, practical way AI can lend a hand in each, from sorting out a sewing-machine setting to doing the math on a quilt to catching a flaw in a sketch. The hands stay yours; AI just pulls up a chair.

In AI in the News, two stories for the 65-plus crowd. First, a follow-up to last week’s conversation with Rob Fowler: Google’s DeepMind says its AI can now forecast a hurricane’s path, strength, and size a full day sooner than the models we’ve relied on for years — the kind of head start that saves lives. Then, a thornier one: AI “agents” are now taking entire online college courses for students who cheat, raising real questions about what an online degree is worth.

In AI for Good, a genuinely hopeful story: a Columbia University tool called STAR that uses AI to find “hidden” sperm in men once told they could never father a biological child — already helping couples bring home babies. And Ginny’s recommendation has nothing to do with AI: Brian Lagerstrom, her favorite cooking show on YouTube — smart, a little sassy, and a wonderful teacher.

Pull up a chair and join us for episode 52 — and thank you for being here.

SHOW LINKS

🔗 "A.I. Brings Big Gains to Hurricane Forecasts, Google Researchers Say" (The New York Times, William J. Broad, Aug. 28, 2026): https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/28/science/ai-hurricane-forecasts-google.html

🔗 "A.I. Agents Are Taking Entire Online Courses for Cheating Students" (The New York Times, Dana Goldstein & Alan Blinder, Aug. 10, 2026): https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/10/us/ai-cheating-online-degrees.html

🔗 "A.I. Is Finding Sperm Where Doctors Couldn’t" (The New York Times, Andrew Zaleski, Aug. 11, 2026): https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/11/science/ai-infertile-men-sperm.html

🔗 Brian Lagerstrom on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@BrianLagerstrom

🔗 Brian Lagerstrom, "The Best One-Pot Pasta I’ve Made All Year" (spicy sausage rigatoni): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yKWWRlh8qeE

🔗 Brian Lagerstrom, "20-Minute Bahn Mi Sandwich": https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I4ycWq9v1SM

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Bitsy Intro

00:33 Dolly Parton Tribute

02:39 AI News Hurricane Forecasts

05:01 AI Cheating Online Courses

08:39 AI for Good Fertility Breakthrough

11:13 AI Meets Handmade Crafts

13:34 Sewing and Collage Tips

15:22 Woodworking and Knitting Help

17:45 Embroidery Through Decoupage

20:32 Painting and Drawing Boosts

23:41 Convincing a Skeptical Artist

25:02 Non AI Recommendation

26:40 Wrap Up and Safety Notes

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

This week Ginny Deerin does something she rarely does — she brings on a guest. She sat down (at the pickleball court, naturally) with Rob Fowler, one of the Lowcountry's best-known meteorologists, to talk about how AI is quietly reshaping the weather forecast. They get into the new AI hurricane models, why AI still can't stand on its own without real-world data, the local experience no model can replace — and, because they're both a little obsessed, pickleball.

In AI in the News, two stories for the 65-plus crowd. First, close to home: Charleston wants to expand its AI-powered traffic cameras — which watch the flow and adjust the signals in real time — to the Crosstown and Folly Road, part of a trend playing out in cities across the country. Then, one for the grandparents: OpenAI's new "ChatGPT for Teens," a more protected version with content blocks, no romantic chit-chat, regular reminders that it's a machine, a study mode, and parental controls — along with Ginny's healthy dose of skepticism.

In AI for Good, two hopeful ones: USC researchers using AI to read a brain MRI voxel by voxel to spot the early signs of Alzheimer's, and a featherweight, AI-powered knee brace from the Beijing Institute of Technology that helps older legs take on stairs and ramps. Ginny's recommendations: give pickleball a try, listen to Ezra Klein's conversation with AI-governance expert Helen Toner, and read Cory Doctorow's sobering new book — even if, like Ginny, you usually land in the optimist's camp.

Pull up a chair and join us for episode 51 — and thank you for being here.

SHOW LINKS

🔗 "Charleston may expand use of AI to more high-traffic intersections across city" (The Post and Courier, Kailey Cota, Aug. 18, 2026): https://www.postandcourier.com/news/charleston-artificial-intelligence-cameras-folly-crosstown/article_0f013a7b-f746-4e19-b15c-32b59f49114b.html

🔗 "OpenAI Introduces 'ChatGPT for Teens' as Safety Concerns Grow" (The New York Times) / "OpenAI debuts ChatGPT for Teens" (Axios, Ina Fried, Aug. 18, 2026): https://www.axios.com/2026/08/18/openai-chatgpt-for-teens

🔗 "New AI Could Detect Alzheimer's Earlier" (Dataconomy, Aug. 4, 2026 — USC study): https://dataconomy.com/2026/08/04/new-ai-could-detect-alzheimers-earlier/

🔗 "New lightweight knee exoskeleton helps older adults walk more easily" (News-Medical, Aug. 18, 2026 — Beijing Institute of Technology): https://www.news-medical.net/news/20260818/New-lightweight-knee-exoskeleton-helps-older-adults-walk-more-easily.aspx

🔗 The Ezra Klein Show, "The A.I.s Are Already Out of Control" (Aug. 18, 2026 — guest Helen Toner): https://youtu.be/locKEKxG3os?si=RrzrwXCc2q4mLsrh

🔗 Cory Doctorow, "The Reverse Centaur's Guide to Life After AI" (2026): https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/245645195-the-reverse-centaur-s-guide-to-life-after-ai

🔗 Rob Fowler's pickleball podcast, The Rob Lob (WCBD+): https://www.counton2.com/video/the-rob-lob-episode-1/10965393/

🔗 Dill Dinkers Pickleball: https://app.courtreserve.com/Online/Portal/Index/17630

Chapters

00:00 Welcome to Episode 51

02:06 AI Traffic Cameras

05:43 ChatGPT for Teens

08:57 AI for Good Highlights

09:31 Alzheimer's Early Detection

11:06 Knee Brace Exoskeleton

12:31 Rob Fowler Interview

14:33 AI in Forecasting

16:27 Forecasting Mistakes

17:40 Autonomy Blindness

18:38 Pickleball Obsession

21:32 Recommendations Segment

24:11 Wrap Up and Takeaways

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

It’s a milestone week on aiGED — our 50th episode. Ginny Deerin thanks the 65+ crowd who’ve grown this show by recommending it to others, and then dives into a sequel listeners asked for. A while back she ran through a batch of AI lingo so no one gets left out of the conversation; this week it’s round two — 20 more words worth knowing, from the plain basics to the genuinely head-spinning.

With her sidekick Bitsy, Ginny explains all 20 terms in plain English — starting with the building blocks, tokens and compute, and working out to the far horizon, the singularity and recursive self-improvement. In between: agentic loop, botshit, age gate, interpretability, model welfare, frontier models, stealing the weights, open weight versus open source, pilling, tokenomics, alignment, reward hacking, synthetic intimacy, humanize, stacks, automation blindness, and the one that got under Ginny’s skin — surveillance pricing, along with its disturbing cousin, surveillance wages.

In AI in the News, two stories worth sticking around for: a New York Times report on how a French startup gave a Detroit factory robot “eyes” — a little camera that let it see and fix itself — and a Wall Street Journal piece on why our chatbots won’t stop flattering us, with a simple settings trick to make yours more direct. Ginny’s recommendation is ABC and Hulu’s Will Trent, a feel-good crime drama whose dyslexic hero leans on everyday text-to-speech. And she answers a listener question about moving your chat history when you switch from one chatbot to another.

Pull up a chair and join us for episode 50 — and thank you for being here for all of them.

SHOW LINKS

🔗 “How to Make a Robot Better at Its Job? Give It Eyes.” (The New York Times, Farah Stockman, Aug. 17, 2026): https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/17/business/robots-stellantis-inbolt.html

🔗 “Why I Told My Chatbot to Stop Kissing Up to Me.” (The Wall Street Journal, 2026): https://www.wsj.com/tech/ai/why-i-told-my-chatbot-to-stop-kissing-up-to-me-62cea3fa

🔗 Will Trent – Series - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=peV4zk7dmA0

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and 50th Episode

01:48 AI News Robot Eyes

04:03 AI News Stop Flattery

06:43 Lingo Round Two Setup

07:35 Tokens and Compute

10:16 Agents and Botshit

11:38 Age Gates and Interpretability

14:14 Model Welfare and Frontier

16:02 Weights Open and Pilled

19:36 Tokenomics to Alignment

23:56 Reward Hacking and Intimacy

27:17 Humanize Stacks and Bias

30:13 Surveillance Pricing Wages

33:30 Bitsy Wrap and Takeaways

34:09 Recommendation Will Trent

36:10 Listener Question Switching Bots

37:28 Final Thanks and Safety

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd