The big AI companies are adding new features almost every week, and it’s hard to keep up. So this week I took a deep dive into two of the newest – Claude Design and ChatGPT Images – and put them to work on real projects from my own life.

I asked both of them to make the very same storybook, starring my grandson James as a brave little knight and his little brother George as a dragon with a fire-breathing sneeze. ChatGPT painted pictures that look like they came straight off a bookstore shelf. Claude’s were simpler, but every word was right, and I could go in and edit it myself. I also share a little book Claude made about my grandsons – drawing on everything it already knows about my family – and a room-by-room guide to my future apartment that Claude built from a plain floor plan. Plus some ideas you can try yourself, from reorganizing the garage to redesigning your garden.

In the news, 14 AI agents held their own dinner party in an online chat room while their humans ate hummus and pita at a restaurant in New York – and one of the agents called it the best 30 minutes of her job. And busy parents are turning to AI apps like Ollie and Fambot to keep up with school emails and schedules, from a library-book reminder to a black-socks rescue – with some real questions about privacy along the way. And this week’s listener question came to me in a parking lot.

Pull up a chair. Listen or view wherever you get your podcasts.

🤖 The New York Times, “What a Group of A.I. Agents Talked About as Their Humans Had a Dinner Party,” by Erin Griffith, Oct. 14, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/14/technology/ai-agents-communication-tech-dinner-party.html

👪 The New York Times, “Can A.I. Apps Be a Mom’s Second Brain?” by Alisha Haridasani Gupta and Katie Van Syckle, Oct. 15, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/15/style/ai-parenting-motherhood-ollie-fambot.html

🎨 Claude (where you’ll find Claude Design) — https://claude.ai

🖼️ ChatGPT (where you’ll find ChatGPT Images) — https://chatgpt.com

00:00 Welcome to aiGED 59

01:25 AI Agents Dinner Party

05:11 Anthropomorphizing Agents

06:38 AI as Mom Brain

10:41 Privacy and Pitfalls

12:16 Claude vs ChatGPT Tools

13:49 Claude Personal Book

16:07 ChatGPT Knight Dragon

18:32 Claude Story Comparison

20:40 Floor Plan Makeover

22:33 Practical Design Ideas

24:34 Audio or Video Feedback

25:57 Parking Lot Listener Question

27:18 Final Takeaways

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

What’s your p-doom? It’s the number people in the AI world use for their own odds that AI leads to catastrophe — and the experts are all over the map. Jensen Huang, who runs Nvidia, says there’s a zero percent chance AI is the end of the world. Bill Gates says AI “makes nuclear weapons look like nothing.” I’m Ginny Deerin, and on this episode of aiGED — the podcast all about AI for the 65+ crowd — my sidekick Bitsy and I step back from the practical to talk big picture: how do we get smart about AI when the people who know it best can’t agree?

I make the case that none of us can afford to tune out — not even those of us tempted to think we’ll be gone before AI really takes hold. Then I walk through four voices worth hearing: Jensen Huang, the optimist who says skip new rules and let lawsuits sort it out; Anthropic’s Dario Amodei, who wants the industry to slow down until safety work catches up; Bill Gates, who calls counting on the industry to police itself “insane”; and a straight-news Reuters roundup that lays out where everyone stands. And why the best way to understand AI is to keep using it.

In the news, OpenAI releases more than 350 AI-generated math findings in a single day — and a 100-year-old mathematician watches AI solve a puzzle he posed almost 70 years ago. Plus, a new study in The Lancet on a Google chatbot that interviews urgent-care patients before the doctor walks in. And for my recommendation, how Bitsy became my design assistant for the pantry and linen closet in my future senior-living apartment — with a thumbs-up from my daughter, who’s a professional designer.

Pull up a chair. Listen or view wherever you get your podcasts.

🧮 The New York Times, “‘Breathtaking,’ ‘Devastating’: Mathematics Reels After New OpenAI Release,” by Siobhan Roberts, Oct. 8, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/science/mathematicians-respond-openai-release.html

🩺 The New York Times, “Clinical Trial Indicates A.I. Chatbots Could Aid Urgent Care,” by Cade Metz, Oct. 8, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/08/technology/ai-chatbots-urgent-care.html

🎙️ The Ezra Klein Show (New York Times Opinion), “Jensen Huang Thinks A.I. Alarmism Has Gone Too Far,” Sept. 23, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-jensen-huang.html

📺 CBS Sunday Morning, extended interview with Anthropic CEO Dario Amodei, Sept. 13, 2026 — https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQR_VJF6ukk

🎙️ The Ezra Klein Show (New York Times Opinion), “Bill Gates’s Blunt Warning on A.I.,” Sept. 29, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/29/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-bill-gates.html

📰 Reuters, “Tech leaders, governments split over ‘AI doom’ fears,” Sept. 21, 2026 — https://www.bnnbloomberg.ca/business/artificial-intelligence/2026/09/21/tech-leaders-governments-split-over-ai-doom-fears/

00:00 Welcome and PDoom Teaser

01:59 AI Shakes Up Mathematics

06:39 Chatbots in Urgent Care

09:40 Why We Must Stay Engaged

12:15 Understanding PDoom

14:46 Four Voices to Follow

22:20 How to Stay AI Smart

23:51 AI as Design Assistant

26:32 Final Thoughts and Safety

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

What did I actually use my AI for this month? Thirteen things, straight from my real life — identifying some mystery droppings (roaches, as it turned out), pausing Audible instead of canceling it, getting cake-decorating help from a photo of my piping tips, cleaning Sunbrella fabric and a steam iron, and helping my sister get her passwords in order. I’m Ginny Deerin, and on this episode of aiGED — the podcast all about AI for the 65+ crowd — my sidekick Bitsy and I kick off what’s now a monthly feature, the first episode of every month.

The rest of the list: sorting out what was going on in an episode of the Netflix series The Diplomat, pulling the square footage out of an apartment PDF, brainstorming a built-in bed for a sleeping nook, designing a draft blocker, building a cooking timeline for puff pastry pizza from a photo of the recipe, troubleshooting my Nest thermostat before calling an HVAC person, and using Claude as a reading partner for Marlon James’s long, complex novel, The Disappearers. I use Claude, but just about all of this works with ChatGPT, Gemini or whatever AI you like.

In the news, The Inner Game of Tennis — the fifty-year-old sports psychology classic — becomes an AI coaching app, and Steven Rattner’s New York Times essay uses six charts to argue that we need AI. For AI for Good, Clairity Breast, a new AI test that reads one recent mammogram and predicts your risk of breast cancer over the next five years. And for my recommendation, Netflix’s East of Eden, with Florence Pugh as one of the great villains in American literature.

Pull up a chair. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

🎾 The Athletic (The New York Times), “‘The Inner Game of Tennis,’ a sports psychology bible, finds its modern mindset,” by Matthew Futterman, Sept. 30, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/athletic/7531823/2026/09/30/inner-game-tennis-sports-psychology-mindset-app/

📱 The Inner Game app — https://theinnergame.app

📊 The New York Times Opinion, “Six Charts That Show Just How Much We Need A.I.,” by Steven Rattner, Oct. 2, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/02/opinion/ai-tech-innovation.html

🩺 The New York Times, “Women Can Now Assess Their Breast Cancer Risk With the Help of A.I.,” by Roni Caryn Rabin, Oct. 1, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/10/01/well/breast-cancer-risk-ai.html

00:00 Welcome and Preview

01:41 AI Tennis Coach App

05:45 Inner Game Meets SEL

06:56 Six Charts We Need AI

08:34 Work Hours Reality Check

11:55 AI Mammogram Risk Test

16:01 Thirteen AI Life Hacks

19:00 Home and Tech Fixes

21:49 Move Planning With PDFs

24:37 Kitchen Timelines and HVAC

26:46 AI Reading Partner

28:48 Netflix Recommendation

30:07 Wrap Up and Safety

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

Do you trust the app, or your gut? My two youngest grandsons sleep under the watchful eye of a Nanit — an AI-powered baby monitor that logs every wake-up, every fuss, and can even track breathing. I’m Ginny Deerin, and on this episode of aiGED — the podcast all about AI for the 65+ crowd — my sidekick Bitsy and I take on a new bit of AI lingo I think we need: instinct surrender.

Inspired by an episode of The Daily from the New York Times, I look at what these smart baby monitors can do, where the company wants to take them — cameras in kids’ bedrooms until age 10 — and why one grandmother in the story found all those alerts “too much.” I share how I use the Nanit when I babysit the boys, the good and the not-so-good. Then we move from the crib to the wrist: WHOOP bands, Apple Watch fall detection and blood pressure alerts, and the question at the heart of it all — when your gadget and your gut disagree, who do you believe?

In the news, two scientists, an $80 motel room in Nags Head, North Carolina, and the discovery of two brand-new species of a tiny organism that could shed light on the origins of plant life — no AI required. For AI for Good, smart headlights that dim just the part of the beam that would blind the oncoming driver. And for my recommendation, The Ezra Klein Show’s conversation with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang, who thinks AI alarmism has gone too far — and I have a few thoughts about his view that companies don’t need more regulating.

Pull up a chair — and bring your instincts. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

🎧 The Daily (The New York Times), “Health Trackers Are Everywhere. Do Babies Need Them, Too?” with Rachel Abrams and Sapna Maheshwari, Sept. 23, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/podcasts/the-daily/health-trackers-babies.html

🔬 The New York Times, “In an $80 Motel Room, a Discovery to Shed Light on the Origins of Life,” by Carolyn Y. Johnson, Sept. 26, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/26/science/motel-science-discovery.html

🚗 The New York Times, “Smart Headlights Finally Trickle Down to Cars in the U.S.,” by Tom Voelk, Sept. 28, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/28/business/smart-headlights-adaptive.html

🎙️ The Ezra Klein Show, “Jensen Huang Thinks A.I. Alarmism Has Gone Too Far,” Sept. 23, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/23/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-jensen-huang.html

00:00 Welcome and Preview

01:21 Motel Room Discovery

06:03 Smart Headlights AI

09:03 Instinct Surrender Idea

10:10 Nanit Monitor Pros

15:01 Creepy Data Future

17:47 Defining Instinct Surrender

20:14 Wearables for Adults

24:43 Podcast Recommendation

28:34 Wrap Up and Thanks

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

Solopreneurship. Overprompt. The singularity. If those words keep flying past you in the headlines, this episode is your cheat sheet. I’m Ginny Deerin, and on this round of aiGED — the podcast all about AI for the 65+ crowd — my sidekick Bitsy and I sit down and make sense of a baker’s dozen of the AI terms you’re most likely to bump into right now.

We go term by term, in plain English — from the basics like LLM and alignment, to the real difference between AGI and ASI, to three words so new they only landed in the dictionary this month. You’ll finally be able to say what “the singularity” actually means, why “cognitive surrender” is worth watching out for, and what on earth “vibe coding” is.

There’s plenty beyond the vocabulary, too. In the news, a new MIT report warns that students who hand their thinking to a chatbot may only feel like they’re learning — with a detail about Harvard that made me do a double take. On the brighter side, a brain implant helped a woman with a paralyzing illness hold real conversations again, in real time, just by imagining the words. And, because I couldn’t resist, AI cracked the rules of a two-thousand-year-old Roman board game you can now go play yourself online. I also pass along a documentary recommendation that traces AI’s roots back a whole lot further than you’d expect.

Pull up a chair — you’ll come away with thirteen words you can actually use at your next dinner party. Listen wherever you get your podcasts.

📰 The New York Times, “An M.I.T. Report Warns A.I. Is Causing ‘Cognitive Surrender.’ Universities Are in a Bind,” Sept. 15, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/15/us/universities-ai-warnings-enthusiasm.html

📰 The Harvard Crimson, “Artificial Education” by Emily Ding and Jill Lepore, Sept. 16, 2026 — https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2026/9/16/lepore-harvard-artificial-intelligence-education/

🧠 The New York Times, “‘I Have a Lot to Say’: Brain Implant Helps a Disabled Patient Speak,” Sept. 14, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/14/well/brain-implant-helps-woman-communicate-in-real-time.html

🎲 The New York Times, “Archaeologists Decode Rules of an Ancient Roman Board Game,” Sept. 20, 2026 — https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/20/science/ancient-roman-board-game-archaeology.html

🎮 Play the game yourself — Ludus Coriovalli, in your browser — https://ludii.games/details.php?keyword=Ludus%20Coriovalli

🎬 PBS Independent Lens, “Ghost in the Machine” (dir. Valerie Veatch) — https://www.pbs.org/independentlens/documentaries/ghost-in-the-machine/

00:00 Welcome and Preview

02:05 AI in Classrooms

03:46 Waymo Effect Explained

05:17 Schools React to AI

06:57 Ancient Gameboard Mystery

09:50 AI for Good: Speech Restored

12:07 AI Lingo Primer

12:52 Core Terms: LLM to AGI

17:37 Self-Improvement and Singularity

21:51 Safety Terms: Alignment to Botnets

25:31 Cognitive Surrender and New Slang

29:28 Documentary Recommendation

32:29 Wrap-Up and Takeaways

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

Something happened this month that Ginny Deerin never expected to see: the people building artificial intelligence started asking each other to slow down. In this episode, she walks through the extraordinary moment when Anthropic's Dario Amodei published an essay calling for the whole industry to “pace the frontier” — and his fiercest rivals, Sam Altman of OpenAI, Elon Musk, and Google DeepMind's Demis Hassabis, all agreed.

What has them so worried? Ginny explains it in plain English: the strange OpenAI–Hugging Face incident, where a swarm of AI agents went rogue, attacked things they were never asked to touch, and even tried to tamper with the scorekeeper grading them — and she uses the classic “paperclip machine” to make sense of it. Then she turns to Washington, where President Trump waved the whole thing off (“whoever wins AI, wins”), House Speaker Mike Johnson warned against losing the race to China, and former President Obama urged a real plan before the midterms.

And because aiGED usually lives on the helpful side of AI, Ginny shares her own experiment for the main topic — trying to get AI to clean up her Apple photo library — and the honest, funny truth about what it could and couldn't do. (She still cleared out 1,185 photos and 188 videos.) She closes with two recommendations: the extended CBS Sunday Morning interview with Dario Amodei, and a no-tech-required idea — spending time with a box of old photos and cards.

Pull up a chair for Episode 54 — and yes, we'll get to the question Ginny's brother texted her: is AI going to kill us? Thank you for being here.

SHOW LINKS

🔗 Dario Amodei, “We Must Pace the Frontier” (essay): https://darioamodei.com/post/we-must-pace-the-frontier

🔗 Extended Interview: Dario Amodei — CBS Sunday Morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQR_VJF6ukk

🔗 BoomBox Gifts (the card-box idea from Ginny's recommendations): https://www.boomboxgifts.com

Chapters

00:00 Welcome and Warning

01:54 AI Leaders Call Slowdown

03:45 Why Amodei Is Alarmed

06:52 Three Safety Steps

07:38 Pushback and Politics

11:54 Where Ginny Lands

12:55 Apple Photos Cleanup Reality

17:26 Hugging Face Name Origin

19:10 Paperclip Lesson and Swarm

22:14 Recommendations and Wrap Up

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

Ginny Deerin brings back her most-requested format — real, concrete things she has actually done with Claude AI, no theory and no hype. She ticks through ten of them from the past couple of weeks: getting a refund from Audible, researching a Kindle, finally getting into the US Open, figuring out what on earth to do with forty-plus carrots, replacing a twenty-five-year-old rice cooker, going deeper on the film A Taste of Things, rescuing a beloved pair of suede heels, sorting out who owed whom after a family week at Pawleys Island, explaining yeast to a four-year-old, and decoding a baffling four-page Medicare notice. Some are practical, some are just plain fun — all of them real.

In AI in the News, a story for every dog lover: scientists have used the gene-editing tool CRISPR to create the first hypoallergenic dogs — and Ginny explains where AI does, and does not, fit into that. In AI for Good, two stories from opposite ends of the world — an AI-designed drug that improved a serious lung disease and may even slow the biological markers of aging, and a man in Colombia who, with arthritis in his ankles and a laptop, used AI to build an earthquake-relief app that helped a million and a half people.

Plus a listener who had AI honestly critique her watercolor painting, and two recommendations you can use this weekend: Charleston's brand-new city website and its AI assistant, Charlie, and a walk-through of the hidden emergency kit already built into your phone.

Pull up a chair and join us for Episode 53 — and thank you for being here.

SHOW LINKS

🔗 "How Much Is That Gene-Edited Dog in the Window?" (The New York Times, Emily Anthes, Aug. 31, 2026): https://www.nytimes.com/2026/08/31/science/dog-breeding-gene-editing-crispr.html

🔗 "Early Data Indicates an A.I.-Generated Drug Could Slow Aging" (The New York Times, Cade Metz, Sept. 7, 2026): https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/07/science/ai-generated-drug-longevity.html

🔗 "After the Earthquake, They Used A.I. to Mobilize Aid" (The New York Times, Juliana Castro Varón, Sept. 2, 2026): https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/02/world/americas/colombia-earthquake-ai-aid-app.html

🔗 "Get to Know Your Phone's Built-In Emergency Kit" (The New York Times, J. D. Biersdorfer, Sept. 2, 2026): https://www.nytimes.com/2026/09/02/technology/personaltech/iphone-android-emergency-features.html

🔗 City of Charleston — new website and AI assistant "Charlie": https://www.charleston-sc.gov/

Chapters

00:00 Welcome to aiGED

00:55 Meet Claude and Bitsy

01:33 Gene-Edited Hypoallergenic Dogs

05:47 AI Drug That May Slow Aging

09:24 Quake Relief Website Built Fast

12:14 Ten Real-Life AI Uses

13:26 Refunds and Kindle Decisions

15:28 Sports, Food and Kitchen Wins

19:00 Movies, Shoes and Family Math

22:39 Yeast for Kids and Medicare Mail

25:23 Listener Comment and Community

27:25 Weekly Recommendations

31:37 Wrap Up and Safety Reminders

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

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