Seniors and AI: Myth-Busting and Practical Tips

Seniors and AI: Myth-Busting and Practical Tips

AI for Seniors: What It Is, What It Isn’t, and How to Start Using It

Season 8 of Village’s Vitality Life: Senior Life Unscripted opens with Mike Roth interviewing technologist Len Koski about AI for seniors, defining AI as pattern-trained software that generates helpful responses but is not general intelligence and has no will of its own. They discuss everyday AI use (recommendation engines, shopping assistants, autocorrect, voice assistants, GPS) and popular consumer tools (ChatGPT, Copilot, Gemini, Meta AI, Claude, Perplexity), then debunk common myths: AI won’t replace you if you learn it, it doesn’t automatically know everything about you, it isn’t only for young people, and it’s safe to experiment. Practical senior uses include drafting emails, simplifying medical language, planning trips and meals, staying connected, creating captions and thumbnails, learning new skills, and writing poems or songs. They promote two hands-on Enrichment Academy courses in The Villages (beginner TEC 7200 in January; intermediate AI Beyond the Basics 201 Feb–Mar 2027), with device/browser prerequisites, registration options, and workbook resources.

 | Time | Name | 0:00 | Introduction to AI for Seniors
| 0:51 | Defining AI: What It Is and Isn't
| 3:02 | Everyday AI Examples We Already Use
| 4:07 | Top AI Tools for Consumers
| 5:10 | Busting Common AI Myths and Fears
| 8:48 | Practical AI Applications for Seniors
| 10:02 | Planning Trips and Setting Budgets
| 10:53 | Creative Uses: Messages, Poems, and Songs
| 14:31 | "AI for Older Adults" Course Preview
| 17:14 | Beginner's Course Curriculum
| 19:31 | How to Register for the Classes
| 20:47 | AI Beyond the Basics: Intermediate Course

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Transcript

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Nancy: 0:16

Welcome to Season eight of Village's Vitality Life, Senior Life Unscripted. In this new season, we talk to leaders of clubs and interesting folks who live in and around The Villages. We also talk to people who have information vital to seniors. You will get perspectives of what is happening in and around The Villages, Florida. In addition, we will add more information for all seniors.

Mike Roth: 0:40

this is Mike Roth on Village's Vitality Life Senior Life Unscripted. I'm here today with Len Koski. Thanks for joining me, LAN.

Len Pikulski: 0:50

Thank you.

Mike Roth: 0:51

Today we have an unusual episode. We're going to be talking about AI for seniors. Okay. And by the end of this episode, you're gonna know exactly what AI is, what it isn't, why it's nothing to fear,

Len Pikulski: 1:08

and how you can start using it yourself, even if you've never touched it before.

Mike Roth: 1:13

Now I've been using AI to, for, to create this podcast. For the last two years or so, maybe even longer. And what I've discovered is AI is our friend. AI really is just another tool in the toolbox only. This is a very fancy tool and it can do a lot more than a simple wrench. Len, what was your first experience with AI?

Len Pikulski: 1:41

Being attached to Google, actually. And it started to automatically switch to AI when I started doing searches. And then it just grew from there.

Mike Roth: 1:51

Why don't you tell our listeners about what your background has been from a technology perspective?

Len Pikulski: 1:56

I was an internet service provider back in 1996, so when everybody had modems and all those squealing devices I served you internet and that was the first way that we had it done. It grew from there into webpages and it grew there from into technology consulting. And I consider myself a technologist at this point.

Mike Roth: 2:19

Good. Now. We're going to give you a simple definition of AI at as a piece of software or many different brands of it. Now, there are 70,000 different brands trained on large amounts of data or information, and it's trAIned to recognize patterns generated. And it's designed to create helpful responses. It's not a thinking machine on its own right now. That's, I think called general intelligence. And none of the AI on the marketplace today, as we speak in 2026, have reached that mark and it doesn't have its own will, but it is a thinking machine. There are every day. Uses of AI that you don't even think about. Netflix and YouTube use that in their algorithm to tell you what videos you might wanna watch next. Amazon makes product suggestions. They have a, an AI in their shopping system called Rufuss, which will help you find the right product for you. And then these are the things I'm not terribly fond of. The auto correction programs for typing. Sometimes they come up with the right next word,

Len Pikulski: 3:34

But often they don't,

Mike Roth: 3:35

often, they don't often I have to hit the escape key and type it myself. But there are programs that help us in our daily home life and home automation like Siri, alexa and Google Assistant just to name three. Most of us have GPSs in our cars, and they will predict the best route for you to avoid the most congestion. Len in your opinion, what are the biggest three AIs out there for consumers, especially seniors?

Len Pikulski: 4:07

You have Chat GPT Microsoft Copilot, Google Gemini , and Meta AI. That's just a couple of them.

Mike Roth: 4:14

Yeah. I happen to Claude and Perplexity. And I like Perplexity because it gives citations of where it's giving you the answers. Another way to think about an AI is to think about it as a very well read smart assistant who's sitting over your left shoulder. Okay. And that assistant has read millions of books on every topic imaginable, and he will answer any question that you want. At the time you ask the question. Okay. Now this helper over your shoulder has no memory beyond the current timeframe. Not necessarily true anymore in some of the AIs. But it won't tell you that it remembers, but it does. Okay. And. Theis are not supposed to have an opinion of their own, which should give their answers to you in an unbiased fashion. Now let's address some Myths and fears and seniors might have Len about AI. What do you think the biggest, s fear that many people in the workforce have about AI.

Len Pikulski: 5:19

That AI is going to replace me and take over. And that's not the reality. The reality is that it's not, it's a tool. It's not an autonomous decision maker in your life.

Mike Roth: 5:30

Yeah. AI is a vital tool in the future. I personally feel that every student in school should be taught to use AI. The same way we were taught to use electronic calculators. In my life, when I was a college student, a freshman in electrical engineering, they told us to buy a slide rule to do fancy multiplication, division and other things. And if I brought it, attempted to buy a thousand dollars calculator, they were bring it into the classroom. The instructor would go crazy and say, you're cheating on the exam. You have to use the slide rule. And the truth is the calculator gave much better answers. Most engineers don't even own slide rules anymore, except as novelty pieces is. So Myth number one, AI is not gonna replace you. It's gonna make you more valuable if you know how to use it. Second Myth, AI knows everything about me. Reality? No, not true. Okay. It depends on what you share with the AIs. Okay. Now, since the AIs at this point in time, don't talk to one another. Claude doesn't talk to Perplexity, doesn't talk to Open AI Chat GPT it's a pretty good guess to use. Multiple AIs so they don't have your full conversation history. Or to ask the AI to forget your conversation history at the end of the session. What's a third Myth, Len?

Len Pikulski: 6:57

That AI is only for young techie people.

Mike Roth: 7:00

Not old folks like us.

Len Pikulski: 7:02

No. It's only for the young people.

Mike Roth: 7:03

What's the reality? The reality

Len Pikulski: 7:05

is the seniors are one of the fastest growing groups of confident AI users once shown the basics. Mike Roth: Right? And some of the basics are really easy and we're going to teach that in an AI class coming up in January and February, and we'll tell you a little bit more about that in the second half of this show. But some of the uses of AI for seniors could be as simple as keeping your calendar for you and your significant other Could be finding out about drug interactions that from the drugs that you're taking, both the pharmaceuticals that come over the counter and pharmaceuticals that you need a prescription for. What are the possible interactions? Yeah. Since the AIs are unbiased, they can look at all the information that's out there. What's the fourth Myth, Len? If I make a mistake, I'll break something.

Mike Roth: 7:55

Yeah.

Len Pikulski: 7:55

That's just not true.

Mike Roth: 7:56

It's not like learning how to drive a car. When you step on the gas instead of the break, you crash into something. That's terribly expensive. In AIs, in reality, you're not going to crash and destroy anything. Okay? You can be forced to start all over agAIn, but it's safe to experiment with. Yeah. And to be honest it's important to use AI whenever you get an email. Or a document in the mail and you're not sure if it's really coming from the people that they claim to be coming from, or is it really true? You can feed that document or email into AI and ask a simple question, is this spam or is this the truth? And the AI will analyze it and give you an answer, which might surprise you. Most of the time it'll say it's spam or worse. Now let's shift from Myth busting about AI to genuine excitement and practical value. Let's talk about other real world scenarios where seniors can use AI. And then what do you think the first one is?

Len Pikulski: 9:03

Drafting emails and letters and maybe thank you notes.

Mike Roth: 9:08

There are AI where you can actually tell the AI to draft responses for you. You don't actually have to draft the response where the AI can actually read what's on your screen, understand it, and then you can tell the AI something like, be nice, but say no. Or you can say. I'd like you to add and then add something on. I think as seniors, we've all gone to doctor's offices and had medical explanations with fancy words that you don't understand. And there are terms on the paperwork that you get that are difficult to deal with. So you can turn to your AI and say, tell me what this word means. Tell me what this combin, what this diagnosis means, and you'll get an unbiased explanation in simple English, especially if you say, I wanted an explanation in simple English.

Len Pikulski: 9:59

Sure, sure.

Mike Roth: 10:00

Okay. Give us another practical use

Len Pikulski: 10:02

plan. How about planning trips or meals? Or setting a budget.

Mike Roth: 10:05

Yeah. The first. Long trip I from The Villages to New York. When I took in my electric car in 2023, my wife and I spent about four hours planning the trip so that we never got below 30% of capacity and always had two recharging stations. Within 30 miles of where we're stopping to make sure the car never ran out of juice. That was a lot of time today. There's a, an AI based program called "A Better Route Planner", which will do all that for you in seconds. And it'll even tell you which recharging stations have restaurants, restrooms how many pumps, charging stations there are, and how many are likely to be working, which is important. How about another application for seniors

Len Pikulski: 10:53

staying connected? How about writing messages to your grandkids or creating a photo caption?

Mike Roth: 10:59

That's good. Photo captions, I don't know if anyone else posts YouTube videos, but I posted YouTube videos and creating the. Thumbnail, as they call it, can be quite a daunting problem If you try to do it manually, let the AI do it. Give the AI a picture from your or two and tell 'em to spruce it up and make it bold and it'll do a much better job than most of us seniors can. Another use is to learn something new and keep your mind sharp. Remember I said it was like a expert over your shoulder who's read all these millions of books? Yeah. I use it to help program my home automation system. I don't like programming, but sometimes you have to get deep down in the dirt and program it in the YAML programming language. Which I admit to knowing but don't like to use. And since I'm a not a good program or I'm sometimes sloppy, I'll ask the AI to write the YAML program and that takes care of that. Now Len then, can you think of another use for. And AI by seniors.

Len Pikulski: 12:02

How about imagine asking your computer to help you write a birth birthday poem for your granddaughter in 10 seconds.

Mike Roth: 12:11

That's pretty cool. I had a great grandson born a couple of months ago, and I asked the AI to write a song. For him and his mom and his dad with music, and I sent it to him on the day the baby was born. That, that was a fantastic application.

Len Pikulski: 12:30

Sure.

Mike Roth: 12:31

And I had, I pAId for that, it probably cost me 15 cents to write that, that song I could never sing the song. I could never write the song, get the rhymes Right. But the AI did it and. Gee, less than two minutes. You don't have to be a computer expert to use AI, but you have to be willing to write a sentence or two and be descriptive and complete about what you're writing. Let's take a short break and listen to an Alzheimer's tip from Dr. CrAIg Curtis. We'll be back in a minute.

Dr. Craig Curtis: 13:01

When we talk about the causes of heart attacks and strokes and peripheral vascular disease, we all know about things such as diabetes, smoking, and poor diet choices. Those are all called modifiable risk factors. You can change those and you can lower your risk. And then if we talk about non-modifiable risk factors, things you cannot change. There's a cholesterol that has been labeled. The ghost cholesterol.

Mike Roth: 13:34

I've heard of good cholesterol and bad cholesterol. Now I have to worry about a ghost cholesterol.

Dr. Craig Curtis: 13:41

That's right. There is a cholesterol known as lipoprotein A, that cholesterol has been known about for a long time. However, scientists over the last decade have discovered that this is one of the major. Risk factors for heart disease, cardiovascular disease, cerebral vascular disease, such as strokes and peripheral vascular disease, such as problems in the legs. And what they've discovered is that this is a genetically linked lipoproteins. What that means is. It runs in families, and unfortunately, we've had no way to modify this.

Edward: 14:21

To learn more, visit his website, CraigCurtisMD.com, or call 3 5 2 5 0 0 5 2 5 2 to attend a free seminar.

Mike Roth: 14:31

Thank you, Dr. Curtis. Now I wanted to talk with Len , cause he's gonna be assisting me in the AI courses that I'm going to be offering in January and February of 2027 in The Villages in Richmond Academy. First of all, the first course is called. AI for older adults, and in that course we assume that you have no experience as needed. Okay? If you're nervous or curious, it's okay to take that course. Now, there are a couple of prerequisites to take the course and get the most out of it. The first one is you should bring your computer or a tablet. One, two. We're going to use web browsers in the course, so you should have these web browsers loaded on your tablet or your computer. Microsoft Edge, Google's Chrome and Firefox, so minimum three browsers. If you're really brave, you can use the Comet browser from Perplexity, but the Apple Safari browser still has too many problems, so we will not be supporting that browser during the class. If you have an Apple product, you need to load Chrome Edge. And Firefox, all three. One of the discoveries we've made is that some AIs will run on all three of those no problem. Some of them will only run on one or two of them. So we'll suggest bring all three, bring your battery. That's fully charged. It's a, an hour and a half to two hours that you're gonna have to have that device turned on. That's what, can you think of any other prerequisites?

Len Pikulski: 16:17

Just a willing, open mind.

Mike Roth: 16:19

Willing to learn, right?

Len Pikulski: 16:20

Yeah.

Mike Roth: 16:20

Okay. If you have never learned how to get yourself on a network, a wifi network that's not your home, you probably should practice doing that at home before you come into class, because in the classroom, we'll have a special high bandwidth. Wifi so that 50 people in the class can get on the web and do something at the same time. Most of the recreation centers can't support that. But in, in this one special room at Lake Me on a recreation center that does work we're going to have. 50 people in the class will fill up rapidly. It, as you're hearing this, if you haven't signed up for the class at the Richmond Academy you should attempt to do so. If you're interested in coming, it's a Beginner's class in January. Let's take a look at the, for that class.

Len Pikulski: 17:55

So what we'll learn is travel and leisure, how to plan customized trips and itineraries, literally in seconds.

Mike Roth: 18:03

Good. We're gonna take you through how to write flawless, beautiful emails, letters, and stories and poems, you won't own the copyright on these stories because a human being has to own, has to write it to make it copyrightable in America. But you can create beautiful stories and poems. You'll learn how to do research. Okay. Here's a good one. You turn on YouTube to learn something and that it's an hour and 20 minute long video, and you just don't want to spend that much time. We'll teach you how to have the AI summarize it in writing for you so you can read it in three minutes and then decide if you wanna spend an hour and a half watching

Len Pikulski: 18:45

it. You can't find that information out. Elsewhere on the net.

Mike Roth: 18:49

Yes. There, there's a lot of very good information hidden in those videos on YouTube. And you, instead of spending 30 minutes watching a video to learn how to change the battery in your keyfob how about just reading the four step instructions?

Len Pikulski: 19:03

Sure.

Mike Roth: 19:04

It makes a lot more sense. . We're gonna teach people how to navigate safely on the web. Okay. How to avoid some AI scams because the scammers are beginning to use AI in their scams. Okay now we do have one recommendation, not necessary, but a recommendation for using your computer during these classes and get the maximum benefit out of it. We're gonna start with the free subscription. But the free subscription will run outta steam at some point, and it'll ask you to buy a subscription. So we're telling everyone in advance the easiest subscription to buy is the Google AI subscription for $19.95. That's going to maximize your experience in the class. Each session is going to be an hour and a half. The dates are gonna be January 6th and 13th at the Lake Miona Recreation Center. The course number is TEC the enrichment Academy, TEC 7200. And.

Len Pikulski: 20:10

That's on a Wednesday.

Mike Roth: 20:11

That's on a Wednesday,

Len Pikulski: 20:12

yeah.

Mike Roth: 20:13

And these are morning classes from 10:00 AM

to 11: 20:15

30 AM Now the easiest way to register is online through TheEnrichmentAcademy.org. And then register for course TEC 7200. Why don't you tell 'em then how to register in person?

Len Pikulski: 20:28

You can visit any of these local service locations. The Colony Cottage Recreation Center, the Eisenhower Recreation Center, the Everglades Recreation Center, Elle Recreation Center, Fenney Recreation Center. There's more. La Hacienda, Lake Miona. Laurel Manor. Mulberry Grove, Olympia Rohan Savannah and Sea Breeze. That covers pretty much

Mike Roth: 20:54

You can register in any of the regional recreation centers or you can even mail in your registration to 35 71 Kiessel Road, KIE SSEL Road, The Villages 32163. You can pick up the catalog at most of the recreation centers. And that's our beginner's course. We're also going to be offering a more advanced course for in AI, and I'm offering that cost because we've had a number of requests for it, and we've probably, I probably put. 150 people through the basic course. This course is called AI Beyond the Basics 2 0 1. It's an intermediate level course. That means it's not going to require you to do any programming. All of the talking TOIs is going to be in plain common English. Okay. The idea of that course is to get you to master nine different AIs. It's going to be a fast paced course . Again, a hands-on course. Again, the same requirements bringing your laptop. This one is highly recommended. You got the Google AI subscription. We're gonna take you through creating Wizards. Okay. To customize songs, how to do some photographic editing how to generate stress free checklists if you're gonna go on a cruise, things you should do before you go on the cruise. Maybe things you want to pack based on where you are going. And the time of year , this class is gonna be taught in three sessions starting on. Wednesday the 17th of February, then Wednesday the 24th of February, and the last class is on Thursday, March 4th . Those classes will be at 10:00 AM to those will be two hour classes to noon. Okay. And there were three classes in the series. It's going to be taught in a morning series and then in an afternoon series, the afternoon series on the same days. At the same location will be from 1:30 to 3:30 PM Again, the location is the same at Lake Minona Recreation Center where they have the high speed internet room. Let's, Len, is there anything else that you think you want to tell the people about some of the things that we're gonna be doing?

Len Pikulski: 23:15

Simple things like you we can create. Custom greeting cards very simply. Flyers. Digital artwork. You want change or modify a photograph or a picture?

Mike Roth: 23:25

How about creating logos? We're gonna teach you that.

Len Pikulski: 23:27

Logos. Excellent idea. , there's a

Mike Roth: 23:30

party invitations.

Len Pikulski: 23:31

Yeah. Like for our our loop group, we do flamingo parties, driveway parties, or. Or other kind of get togethers.

Mike Roth: 23:39

Now each student at these, at both classes is going to get a, a workbook. Workbook, which will have two sections. The first section will be a copy of the slides that we use, so you can write on them and take your own notes. And the second half of the book is maybe worth the whole value of the course. That's where , we've put additional information, some of it background and some of it usable stuff, things that you as a, user of AI would want to do. I just wrote a AI prompt that's gonna be in the workbook, which gives you the, all of the news in The Villages. We don't have our own TV channel here. We don't have, although we have a radio station or three, we're all broadcasting exactly the same thing. We don't have our own news channel. So I created an AI prompt that gathers the news and then feeds it back to you. And it's a very interesting prompt because it provides different results on different AIs, but. That will be included in the workbook and will include a lot more current stuff. AI is a changing world where what was true yesterday might or might not be true tomorrow. Okay. Things we won't touch in this course, or either course. We're not gonna talk about AI robotics, okay. In a future course. We're going to be talking about AI agents. We're only very likely going to talk about AI agents in the intermediate course as time permits. But you will walk away with a lot of knowledge and a lot of confidence. Then you took one of my AI courses about three months ago. Why don't you tell our listeners how you felt after you took the course?

Len Pikulski: 25:27

It helped me and explain a lot of the different questions that I had on how the functionality works, how you can stop it from making hallucinations and making wrong things and or misinterpreting your commands. And I enjoyed it. I enjoyed it a lot.

Mike Roth: 25:45

Yeah, so remember that's that AI is the tool sitting over your left shoulder that's read all those books, has that knowledge and remembers all of it and can apply it to the problem at hand.

Len Pikulski: 25:58

Yes. Come join us. Remember, our next episode will be released

Nancy: 26:00

00 AM. Should you wanna become a major supporter of the show or have questions, please contact us at mike@rothvoice.com. This is a shout out for supporters, Tweet Coleman, Ed Williams, Duane Roemmich Paul Sorgen, and Dr. Craig Curtis at K 2 in The Villages. We'll be hearing more from Dr. Curtis with short Alzheimer's tips each week. If you know someone who should be on the show. Contact us at mike@rothvoice.com. The way our show grows is with your help. Text your friends about this show. If you enjoyed listening, use the fan mail button on our homepage, VillagesVitality.Life to leave comments, be sure to include your name, email, and phone number. We thank everyone for listening. The content of the show is copyrighted by Roth Voice 2026, all rights reserved.