A Dash of Salt

Welcome to “A Dash of Salt” where two salty women sprinkle a little flavor into your everyday journey through work, growth, and everything in between. Together, we’re on a mission to infuse a little saltiness into the worlds of professionals who dare to want more from their careers and lives.
Whether you're craving a spicy boost to your leadership skills or simply seeking the savory flavors of personal growth, join us here at 'A Dash of Salt.'

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A Dash of Salt

A Dash of Salt - AI in Real Life

March 25, 2025 • Stacy

In this episode of A Dash of Salt, Stacy and Sharon dive into the world of artificial intelligence (AI)—but just a toe dip, not a deep dive! They discuss how AI is becoming part of everyday life, sharing personal experiences of using AI tools for work, creativity, and productivity.

They highlight how AI is integrated into daily life, from brainstorming business ideas to summarizing long articles and even planning trips.

Beyond practical applications, they also discuss the challenges and misconceptions about AI. They touch on topics like ageism in AI adoption, the fear of AI replacing human creativity, and the importance of critical thinking when using AI-generated content.

The episode wraps up with tips for beginners on how to experiment with AI tools, emphasizing that you don’t need to be a tech expert to get started.

Sharon then takes us into Salt’s Kitchen, where she explores AI’s role in baking—can AI create a better chocolate chip cookie recipe than a human? (Spoiler: It still can’t beat the personal touch of home baking!)

Key Takeaways:

AI is becoming a part of daily life in ways many people don’t even realize.
You don’t need to be an expert to start using AI—just experiment with simple tasks.
Age isn’t a barrier to AI adoption; curiosity and adaptability matter more.
AI can be a powerful brainstorming and productivity tool, but critical thinking is essential.
AI-generated recipes might be decent—but they still don’t match grandma’s cookies!

📢 Listener Challenge: Stacy and Sharon encourage listeners to experiment with an AI tool this week and share their experiences in the comments.

Listen & Subscribe:
Find A Dash of Salt on your favorite podcast platform and visit twosaltywomen.com for more salty wisdom. 🎙️✨

[00:00:00] It's so good to see you. It's good to see you, Stacy. So we sprung forward and now at this time to. Record a new episode of Two Salty Women and A Dash of Salt. So, are you ready to do this? I'm ready. You know, it's a lot more fun season two. It is. It is. I'm having more fun myself. So, we, welcome to A Dash of Salt.

We are, , Two Salty Women. I am Stacy McCracken, your co host, a midwestern girl turned Austinite. South by Southwest is going on in [00:01:00] Austin right now, so things are a little crazy here, um, but hopefully if you haven't visited us before, you can, and, um, yeah. Yeah, and I'm Sharon Mawet, your salty companion, a native Texan with a knack for baking up big dreams.

Absolutely. Absolutely. I'm super excited to Have everyone here today. If this is your first time tuning in, thank you so much for finding us on your podcast playlist. If you have listened to us before, you know that salty does not mean we are angry or upset about anything, but we are just trying to spice up your week and spice up your day just a little bit with some fun, some new ideas for work, and what it's like to, um, be empty nesters and to continue to Strive to move forward, right Sharon?

That's right. Yeah, so, you know, hopefully you'll or drive [00:02:00] carefully wherever you might be listening to us, um, relax and get ready for this week's topic, which Stacy, I think this week we're going to talk about all things AI. We are, I'm super excited. So we're going to, we are just going to put our toe in the pond of AI this week, but this is, there's so much going on that.

It's impossible to, unless we do what Lex Friedman did, which is he did a really great in depth podcast on AI, but it was five hours long. And so we are not going five hours. We are sticking our toe in and, you know, shooting for about 20 minutes today. That's awesome. Well, um, before we do that, we're gonna kick off with your weekly spark for the week.

Um, since it is Women's History Month, I thought I'd take a moment to celebrate some female trail blazers. Um, just like us, we're trying to blaze a trail out there. Um, but right now there's two people I kind of admire that [00:03:00] I'd like to give a shout out. Um, one right now is Reese Witherspoon. I love the fact that as she was starting to look ahead.

Um, in her acting career, she wanted, um, well, she took the initiative and founded hello sunshine, which is dedicated to amplifying female driven stories, which, and she's found a ton of success with that because as she was right all along, people want to, you know, see stories like that. They want to go to movies.

They want to read books. That are have the main character be female females. So the second person that I have admired in the last year that I got introduced last summer during the Olympics was Ilona Maher, if I say her last name correctly. Of course, women's sports is a super hot topic these days in the last 12 months, gaining popularity.

People are really going out and actively supporting them. But Ilona [00:04:00] is an Olympic bronze medalist. She promotes body positivity, um, you know, and she really took the initiative. She's trying to, you know, basically support herself because, um, the pay that she gets from being a professional rugby player as a woman is, you know, very small.

So she went on social media and through her acclaim in the last year, she, you know, on the cover of Sports Illustrated. Um, she now has a lot of great sponsorships with Coppertone and Adidas. So I think that she is our new Coppertone girl, Sharon. I know that's like from our day, Coppertone, you know, girls out there.

So I was super excited to see that still around and she's a great representation for them. Absolutely. Absolutely. I saw. That, um, yeah, it popped up on my Instagram feed just before we got off today that she was our new Coppertone girl and she still had the old image that you [00:05:00] and I remember of the little girl with pigtails and the dog pulling down her bathing suit and, um, so I was super excited to see that for her and I agree with you, she is doing so much to promote.

That body positivity for young women, because that is just something, honestly, that, that I didn't grow up with. And, um, and I'm sure you're not that much younger than me. You're a little bit younger than me. I'm not sure that you grew up with it either. But, um, so I love those two. You know, I have a couple others that come to mind as you were talking.

So, Brooke Shields is doing a lot right now, um, to promote just women as they age, right? And that positive that. That we aren't finished yet. Right. And, um, she just released a new book that, um, Brooke Shields isn't allowed to get old and just talking about the fact that, that it's really hard for people to imagine.

Right. Her. [00:06:00] Aging and you know, but and her still having a voice and something to say and something to contribute and I think that's something that she has in common with Reese, right, that they're trying to promote positive stories for women and really help women age more gracefully and be accepted and because it's Women's History Month, I actually turned to, I have a deck of cards called Fierce Women and it is, It is a deck built of all of these cool women throughout history.

And so I dug through and I found one that I thought was perfect for what we are talking about today with respect to A. I. And this is someone that many people might not have heard of, but her name is Ada Lovelace. Have you heard of Ada Lovelace? I have not. Okay, so let me just tell you about her. She is a mathematician.

She is [00:07:00] a metaphysician and she was the founder of scientific computing and she lived from 1815 to 1852 and she had one of the first ideas that machines could be used for more than just calculation and so she was considered kind of the first modern day computer programmer. Awesome. That's exciting.

Definitely on topic for the day. Right. Isn't that fun? Yeah. Yeah. So, talking about topic of the day, Stacy, what do you have for us about dipping our toe into the AI world? I just wanted, I thought that it would be fun today for us to talk about artificial intelligence, which we will refer to for the rest of the show as AI, right?

Right, because Artificial intelligence is a mouthful, and it means a lot of things. And so, you know, generally we're going to talk about things that, that individuals might be familiar with, like [00:08:00] chat GPT or, you know, these generative AI things where you're talking to your computer with sentences and it's giving you information in response that is different from just a plain old Google search, right?

Where you type a keyword in and it's giving you articles or links to the two things that are like, well, maybe this is what you're looking for. And so I want to talk about AI and. You know, I thought we might just start with talking about maybe our journeys because Sharon, I know that you use AI some and so I want to hear about that.

You know, my journey started, I saw articles starting to come out about artificial intelligence and AI and as you know, and as many of our listeners probably remember, I was working on my doctorate in school at the time as well. So I was working on a doctorate of technology. And so I had this class on strategy and technology.

And I had to pick a project. So I picked a project on [00:09:00] AI simply because I didn't know anything about it and I knew it would force me. To spend some time and practice and get to know it and, and really start to, to learn what it was all about. So, that was my first kind of foray, and from then, I just really started integrating and playing with chat GPT and perplexity AI, and then some other research things as well.

Um, and since then, it's just amazing to me, how many Even everyday things that I use now have an AI component added in or an AI element that's available. And so, you know, that's kind of how my journey started. And now I can't imagine, I probably use some form of AI every single day. But yeah, so Sharon, what's your journey?

What, what does that look like? I would say my first foray into AI, I was introduced [00:10:00] to beautiful AI for presentations, uh, through one of the professors at the university where I work. And I absolutely loved it. I love that, you know, if I wanted. To move from three boxes to four boxes on a, you know, presentation slide.

Well, it would easily adapt and make my presentation simple. Whereas, you know, PowerPoint, um, Microsoft PowerPoint was a little bit more difficult and time consuming to do that. Now, I have tried recently, um, PowerPoint is incorporating a little bit of that in there, but. Not quite at the speed and the agility that I think beautiful AI does but of course just like you In the last year, I've used chat GPT and pilot Mostly for writing skills writing is not my forte.

I have a larger team now in the last year and being able to modify my bullet list Style writing to [00:11:00] match the personality and attributes of my team member. I have utilized a chat GPT and those tools to help me, um, speak a similar language to my employees. I love that. I love that. You know, that's a great, I think that's a great kind of lead into sort of some everyday uses, right?

I think that possibly folks are like, ah, AI isn't for me or. You know, I'm not working or I don't manage a team or things like that. And, you know, I'm wondering, you know, if maybe it'd be helpful to just talk about some ways, some everyday uses for AI, because I find it helpful. at work, but I also find it helpful for things that have nothing to do with work.

And, um, and so I, you know, I would love to spend a little bit of time talking about that. I use it to brainstorm. I work at home and I work, you know, as a [00:12:00] solopreneur most of the time. And so, you know, sometimes I'll find that I just, I'm trying to brainstorm ideas, and I find it makes a great partner to say, Hey, you know, think about, think about the economy.

Think about what's happening, um, with jobs. Think about, you know, these specific companies. And, you know, what, where are the gaps? You know, what am I not thinking about when I'm thinking about ways that I can help serve them better? Right? And it's a great brainstorming partner. It's also great to summarize long articles, and so, and so, you know, if I come across a 20 page article that I just don't have time for, it can give you the summary of it.

I see you smiling. Do you use, have you used it for that, too? It is awesome. Yes, well, I use it primarily for work, and some, I learned at a recent conference from some of my competitors that you're using different tools [00:13:00] to. Um, take an article that maybe a faculty member has written that's very technical and Long, as you might say, which is great for, um, journal articles, but not so great, maybe to a prospective student.

So, there's tools out there to summarize those articles quickly and succinctly to, you know, our

So, I love that. And then I certainly love, um, you know, when you go to Google now, um, and you type in a question, well, it gives you a summary of all the websites. So I don't have to click through 3 or 4 or 5 websites to get my answer. You know, I just either go to the one site it recommended or I see the sources that a Google has summarized for me, and then it's a great time saver.

I found. Right. It is. I love that. You know, when we did our, [00:14:00] um, our podcast on travel, I think I talked a little bit about using AI for planning trips, and I love it for that, because, you know, it can save hours and hours of time just by setting its expertise, right, saying you are an expert travel planner, and I want to go to this place I've never been before, and here are the activities I love to do, Tell me three or four things I should, I should do while I'm there.

And it is great for that. And so even if you're just trying to dip your toe in the water and have a little bit of fun, you can do that and use it. Um, you know, not just for work, but also for, for fun, right? And so is, you know, I've used beautiful AI as well. And I've noticed that Canva, which is another graphic design tool, has started to integrate AI tools.

You know, I, I did a quick [00:15:00] search probably day before yesterday and, you know, it listed, you know, 20 tools, right. That you could use for. How to help you do a podcast and you know, if anybody's wondering if we're using AI to generate our podcast now, this is us. This is all shared and I and uh, and so we are, we have not played with AI yet for doing our podcast or anything like that.

Um, but there's tons for writing. There's tons for research. There's tons for productivity. Um, I love that chat GPT has a new feature called project, which means you can. Basically, take an idea or build a folder, and then you can add to it and build new ideas, um, within that folder so you can have one theme.

So, I think that's a new feature that I started playing with just last week that I'm loving right now. Any other ways you'd like to use this, Sharon? [00:16:00] Um, I would say for now, those are the primary reasons. I'm a little, um, frugal, let's say. So a lot of the new, I wanted to use a tool this week. I was about to go get my haircut and I thought I was kind of wanting a new hairdo and there's AI tools out there.

That you can, you know, picture the style on your face, um, but I could not find one that would do that quickly for me for free. Um, so, you know, so, but I'm out there exploring, um, every day to find new tools. I love that. And you know, what's curious to me, this leads us into kind of the next topic that I want to talk about is, you know, I, I read, uh, kind of an article that made me sad.

That sort of prompted the reason why I wanted to have this conversation, which HBR published an article just a couple of weeks ago about ageism and Artificial [00:17:00] intelligence and AI, and it was a series of, it was a study that was done that looked not just at the United States, but at some, um, very large European countries, and looking at the fact that employers, if they are looking to hire people, and kind of across these different age ranges, that if they know that AI is going to be involved in that job, then that very few are willing to look at somebody over the age of 55.

They just automatically presume that that is not going to be a good fit where AI is involved. Where, you know, and I mean the percentages I'm talking about are things like, let me look at my list real quick just so I get it right. I don't want to miss, misquote. But, you know, they're saying 90 percent would look at somebody under the age of 35.

Whereas only maybe 30 percent would look at somebody over the [00:18:00] age of 55, which is just sad, right? Because there's, it means there's this assumption there. That if you're older, you're not interested or you're not teachable or, um, I don't know. I, you know, and so that really struck me that, um, that, you know, more and more AI things are going to be included in jobs and working alongside people and people are working longer and this bias of, well, if you're of a certain age, you're not going to be interested in it just seems.

I don't know. It seems to me like a gap. What do you think? Um, I agree because it's difficult. I mean, I'm sure there's stats out there that they use in, um, surveying companies that come up with this age restriction, if you will. But I found in my own department, we have quite a broad range of [00:19:00] ages in my own department.

Um, I might be towards the older end of that spectrum, but, um, I would say I'm one of the forefront in our department leading through utilizing some of these, um, tools out there and how can we do our jet, but use these tools to market more effectively and more efficiently, right? Um, whereas, um, maybe some other people, so I don't think an age is a determination of, um, That it's a factor of using AI tools or not.

I think it's a willingness to be more of a first adopter of something than, um, you know, later in that, um, new product stage. Absolutely. I love that. You know, I um, I think you and I are both Gen Xers, right? So we are Are you considered a Gen Xer? No, to be honest you, no, I should never keep track. Okay. It should write it down [00:20:00] somewhere.

Yeah, I think you are. And, uh, and so, you know, I grew up where, you know, I was the one who had to learn how to program the VCR, and I was the one who learned how to do all of these different things, because technology was always changing, right? And so, you know, I feel like Like, I'm pretty adaptable and pretty quick because I'm just kind of used to it, right?

And I think that that speaks to you as well, right? You're like, Oh, it's just a new thing. I have to go figure out now. Exactly. Yeah. I wonder how I can get, I wonder how it can make me more efficient is probably the question you're asking yourself. Exactly. You know, moving to, you know, well, we might start aging ourselves really big, but you know, yes, the new technology would come out at every stage, whether going from high school to college to professional life, you know, there's new technologies and how we did things.

[00:21:00] And so, yeah, you have to learn it or get left, get left behind. You know, you mentioned that about having the right mindset and this willingness to engage. And, you know, part of my dissertation research was around mindset and having this growth mindset related to artificial intelligence. And, you know, I had a, I had a, a strong sample that was a good age distribution as well as gender distribution.

And age and gender didn't matter when it came to interest. Yeah. Right? And so it wasn't, you know, it wasn't that the younger folks were more interested or Men were more interested. There was no difference whatsoever and age and gender and all of that, but there, but there was something that came out, which is the people who, who were interested and who had been playing with it and exploring, you know, their innovative thinking scores were much, much higher.

Then people who were afraid, and I'm [00:22:00] sure that doesn't surprise you a ton, but I'm just wondering, you know, what do you think is so intimidating for some people about AI or these new tools? And what do you think we could do to shift it? Uh, well, I think there's 2 major things. 1 is, you know, people's, um, aversion to fail, you know, their ability and.

to risk failing, right? So it's a new technology. Are we willing to try it? I've always been willing to, um, fail in that regards. Um, and so I think that's one. So, you know, I think, I think one thing that I've observed people are afraid about is. Well, I've heard some folks talk about how it, um, it's going to cause people not to think critically anymore, like you're going to lose your ability to, for critical thinking.[00:23:00]

And then I've heard some folks talk about you, um,

that it almost is going to invade their privacy or they're these, like, there's too many bad things that can happen because of AI. And. And, and I always kind of press on that a little bit. I'm like, what bad things, because I remember hearing those things when the Internet came about, right? And yes, there are dark corners of the Internet that that nobody should go to and bad things absolutely happen on the Internet.

Well, like, I get really excited when I think about the power of, of AI and what it can do by pulling together research that's happening all over the world to come up with, you know, better studies that should happen next so that we can use our research money more efficiently, you know, we can solve problems more quickly, um, those really hard, hard problems that the world has, like, I'm encouraged by that, [00:24:00] um, And I think that's, um, that was my second point, is that people are afraid of what data is out there.

So as you're asking questions and providing whatever AI tool, like I would have had to upload my picture for this AI hairstyle, you know, so, or the questions and answers that you give ChatGPT, that this data is now being mined to use for future research or future generative responses, right? So, but I think there's There's power, like you said, in sharing data like the research and maybe we can, um, you know, cure cancer if we can share and mine this data together and research and not hold it to one company.

So I think there's pros and cons to sharing data, but, um, if you use it with, you know, wisely, then it can be used for good. [00:25:00] Absolutely. You know, I don't think, I also have heard, right, that people are afraid, you know, that, you know, It eliminates the need for human creativity or whatever. And I love it because I feel like, like AI is meant to work alongside humans.

Like I, I love it for the fact that I think. When I ask it the right question, it can make me think even bigger, you know, and I don't have problems thinking big anyway, but like it can really take me to some ideas that are really outside my comfort zone and I love that, right? And so, but that doesn't eliminate my responsibility to think critically about those ideas or to question those ideas or to even fact check those or, you know, like, Like, I'm wise enough, and I think anybody using AI has to be really mindful, [00:26:00] right?

That you can't just accept what it gives you as being gold, right? It's not a, and honestly, it's the same when you do a Google search, right? You can't just believe everything you read. Yeah. All those Facebook videos are not always true, but yes, I completely agree with that, is that you have to, to utilize it.

But it also helps explain things. I tried to buy a laptop earlier this year and when I'm out in the website, it's like, let us help you buy a laptop. I felt it was the most confusing process. It's showing me four different computers and I could not tell the difference between. The four of them because they seem to have the same processors and, you know, same size and I'm like, I had to go to chat GPT that could explain it to me in layman's terms, but the difference between the two are, and I was just like, Oh, this is fantastic, right?

Right, [00:27:00] absolutely. I love that. I love that. So let's, let's talk about some tips to get started. And for, for people who aren't technical experts, who might be reluctant or, um, just afraid to dip their toe in the water and, and, you know, like you said, you don't have to spend money to, to start testing out these tools.

I mean, honestly, my, my Windows updated and Copilot, which is another. AI tool is right there all of the time now, you know, going, do you want to use CoPilot? Like, I don't know. I'm not in the mood today. And so, um, so I would love to just talk through some tips about getting started. For me, I started small, right?

I just picked something that, that was low risk and low, you know, Um, it, it just, you know, I, it was planning, looking at a trip, right, and [00:28:00] something that I could fact check on my own to say, well, what kind of information is it going to give me? And so I just started doing small experiments, honestly, to, to say, okay, if I were going to write something, I want to write a letter, you know, a recommendation letter for someone, you know, and I, I played with that.

I played with planning a trip. I played with, you know, brainstorming. And so I'm just curious what tips you would have for somebody who wants to start. Yeah, I, that's exactly how I started. You just got to start with one question. And then. How to figure out a way to ask the same question three different ways, four different ways.

And then you can see how chat gpt will provide you different answers. And so you'll learn how to just like with people, ask the question in the right way to get. Um, and I think it's really important to get a relevant answer or to get a better answer. So, [00:29:00] that's me. Yeah, I love that. You know, one of the things I always make sure and do is I tell, whether it's ChatGPT or Gemini or whatever tool, I always tell it what I want it to be an expert in so that it is not searching the entire internet for an answer.

And so I'll tell it, you are an expert in, you know, time management, or you are an expert in using Excel, or you're an expert in travel planning, before I then follow on with my question. Um, because it cuts down all of the things that we'll read and consider, right, instead of everything and it's brother that it's been taught, right?

It'll focus on things that that are from expert authorities or from expert resources. Um. As well. And so that's, that's another thing. And I would say, just click on, there's so many tools out there now that, [00:30:00] you know, if you're not into chat GPT, pick something else, right? You know, look at if you're using PowerPoint or, you know, just play with one of those other tools to see what happens, right?

Let it generate an image for you and see what happens. Um, awesome. Awesome. Well, I would love to challenge our listeners that maybe they can pick something new and try to experiment this week. I would love for them to comment and to share below their favorite tools. And so, their favorite kind of tools that they're using right now, what they use them for.

All of those kinds of things. I would love to hear from everyone who's listening how they're using AI and what that looks like for them. Yeah, I'd love to learn more about it because, you know, as you mentioned earlier in this podcast, we're always looking to learn new trips, tips and [00:31:00] tricks, so we'd love to hear what tools you're using and how you're accomplishing that.

So, You know, as we get to salt's kitchen and wrap up our podcast this week, um, of course I had to, you know, see if what AI can do in the kitchen. And so I found an article that we talked about. Can AI make a tastier cookie, um, uh, tastier chocolate chip cookie that is than a human. So it was an article by NPR and so they tested both chat GPT and a new.

AI tool I hadn't heard about, surprisingly enough, since I love all things baking, but called DishGen against a very popular chocolate chip cookie recipe produced by America's Tusk Kitchen. So AI did generate a recipe very close to, um, the Tusk Kitchen's recipe, or, I'm sorry, The recipe found on the back of [00:32:00] the Nestle Tollhouse, um, chocolate chip bag, which I'm sure we're all familiar with the famous Tollhouse chocolate chip cookies.

Um, but interestingly enough that as the tester asked ChatGPT the same question at different times throughout the day, different days that the recipe would vary. Um, and it's a recipe. Each time it asked it for a recipe. So again, like we said earlier in this podcast. Asked different questions. Timing may play a factor or if you ask it to be an expert baker might have changed the recipe that it generated as well.

Um, but, um. The tester thought they, I produced a fairly good recipe, but it did not pick up on a lot of nuances that a lot of people add into their recipe, like toasting the nuts to get, you know, bring out that flavor, you know, browning the butter that goes into, um, the recipe. So, [00:33:00] but plus you have the emotional pull of making your mother's, you know, recipe from your childhood or your favorite aunts recipes.

So that way. But anyway, I do recommend that, you know, give this gen a try. Um, you only get three free credits, so otherwise it's roughly $8 a month. Um, but it does great things like if you're trying to figure out what to cook with things that are in your refrigerator, it'll give you great recipes. I used it, um, and tested it out, um, for smoked sausage because I have like a thousand of them in my freezer right now from hunting season.

Um, but it gave me a similar recipe to what I might find on Pinterest, so it'll be interesting to see how these tools, um, develop over the coming months, because they are constantly changing. I love that. I love that. And what a great way to wrap up with Salt's Kitchen today. And so I'll have to give it a try.

Um, for a recipe and come [00:34:00] back and see how it turns out. There you go. Can't wait to hear it. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. All right. Well, I think that does it for us for today. It does. I am so excited that we had the chance to talk about artificial intelligence. Do you see the light shifting in my video today?

This is crazy. The light is shifting and it is all over the place. Are you sure you don't have an AI light bulb in your room there? There is real sunshine that is shifting its way around my window right now. There you go. So, yeah, maybe if I had used some artificial lighting we wouldn't have had this problem today.

So, thank you so much for tuning in to A Dash of Salt. I am Stacy McCracken. And my co host Sharon Mawet, and we are Two Salty Women. We can't wait to have you come back. Please remember to comment. Please add us to your podcast playlist [00:35:00] and check us out at twosaltywomen. com. That's right. Life is always better with a dash of salt, Stacy.

Till next time. Absolutely. Till next time. Take care.