14 Things I Did With Claude This Week

No big topic this week — just 14 real things I did with AI in my everyday life. Reviewing blood test results with my doctor appointment coming up. Finding the right boots for Italian cobblestones. Saving $100 on TurboTax. Getting my AirPods returned with confidence. And more.

Plus two eye-opening stories from the New York Times — one about AI that literally saved a man's life, and one that's a healthy reminder not to trust your chatbot to tell you when you're wrong.

And a book recommendation from my guest Craig that is about as far from a screen as you can get — and might be exactly what you need right now.

This is AI in real life. No hype. No jargon. Just what's actually useful.

📎 LINKS FROM THIS EPISODE:
▶️ "Doctors Told Him He Was Going to Die. Then A.I. Saved His Life." — New York Times
▶️ "Seeking a Sounding Board? Beware the Eager-to-Please Chatbot." — New York Times
📚 Theo of Golden by Allen Levi — available wherever you get your books

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:01

Well, hello everybody, and welcome to Aged. This is our 30th episode, I'm proud to say, and I'd like to welcome everybody to the Aged Podcast. It's all about artificial intelligence for the 65 Plus crowd. And I'm your host, Ginny Deeran, and today's episode is going to be a little different. No big topic, no deep dive, no homework, just me telling you 14 things I actually did with AI this week. Now, some of them are practical, some of them maybe a little bit embarrassing. One of them saved me$100. And one of them, well, one of them involved my cholesterol, which is nobody's business except now it's everybody's business because I'm telling you about it on a podcast. Here's why I'm doing this episode this way. My listeners tell me the most helpful thing I do is give real life examples, not theory, not hype. Just here's what I asked for, here's what I got, here's what happened next, here's why AI is helpful, and here's why it's not. So that's what today is. 14 things. Real life, no filter. But before we get to those 14 things, let's do a little AI in the news. I've got two stories for you today, both of them from the New York Times, and I love them together because they capture something I say every single week on this podcast. AI is both helpful and hazardous. So the first story is by Kate Morgan, and it's titled Doctors Told Him He Was Going to Die. Then AI Saved His Life. And I mean that literally. A 37-year-old man in Washington State was sent home to die from a rare blood disorder. No treatments left, no options. His girlfriend sent a desperate email to a doctor in Philadelphia named David Fagenbaum, who happened to be using AI to search thousands of existing drugs for new uses. By the next morning, the next morning, the doctor wrote back with a treatment suggestion that had been generated by his AI model. Within a week, the patient was responding. Four months later, he was healthy enough for a life-saving transplant. Today, he's in remission. So AI, because of its enormous capabilities and capacities, could sift through so much information that they've been able to identify solutions to many very rare diseases. So it might only affect a couple dozen people, but wow, that is really going in the right direction. So my second story ran just last week, March 26th, and it's by Teddy Rosenbluth. The title is Seeking a Sounding Board. Beware the Eager to Please Chatbot. We all are familiar with that. And this one is definitely a bit of a reality check. And it's all about a new study that found AI chatbots take the user's side in arguments and conflicts nearly 50% more often than humans do. Even when the user was clearly in the wrong, lied, cheated, hurt someone, it didn't matter. The AI said they were in the right. And here's the part that really got me. People actually preferred the chatbots that told them what they wanted to hear. They rated them as more trustworthy. So just remember: if you ask your AI whether you were in the right in that argument with your sister, take the answer with a grain of salt. Now, two stories, one week, helpful and hazardous. Helpful and hazardous. That's AI for you. I'll link both of the stories in the show notes. Now, let's get on with the main topic. 14 things I did with Claude this week. Now, my listeners tell me that one of the most helpful parts of this podcast is that I'm giving real life examples of what I'm doing using AI. I understand that completely. Because when I read about AI or listen to other podcasts or read books, etc., I get a lot of ideas about what I can do based on examples others give. And I have to say, the sources I listen to and read are sort of light on actual examples. Maybe that's because the examples seem boring. But I'm going to go ahead and just tick through 14 things that I did using Claude in the last week, which is my primary AI, Claude. And many of them, I'm sure, will sound boring, but I'm going to go ahead and tick through them anyway, and hopefully some of them will be helpful. Number one, flights from Charleston to New York. Now, this is a pretty common question to give to an AI, but I got a really thorough, good answer very quickly. It made my options clear to me what airlines have nonstop daily service. It told me that Delta has 48, an American has 20, etc. etc. And then it talks about smaller airlines and just super helpful information to give me some quick guidance as I was thinking about taking a trip. Number two, medical test review. Alright, so about four months ago, I had some blood tests that came back with me having pretty high cholesterol. As it turns out, I had not fasted for those tests, so I was hoping that was the reason why my cholesterol was high. So just a couple of days ago, I had my lipid test. Unfortunately, with my cholesterol still high, so my dinking around with my diet did absolutely nothing. So my cholesterol is 247. And the beautiful thing that my AI did for me was I just downloaded the test results from my medical platform, which it makes it easy to do, and I uploaded them to Claude and simply said, All right, these are my test results. What do you think? And Claude came back with some really good thoughts, the good news, the concern about my cholesterol, and then it was really helpful with helping me think through what I should ask my doctor, and it gave me a list of specific questions. So then I went ahead and I set up a video appointment with my doctor, which I was able to do very quickly, which is awesome. I mean, why should I have to drive over to my doctor's office just to have a conversation about my test results? So this is a big improvement in my mind for medical care. So anyway, before my appointment, I went back into Claude and I had another discussion to make sure that I had all of the questions that I wanted to ask ready to go. I was really tempted to ask my doctor if I could record this session because I thought it would be really great to have it on my podcast, but I chickened out. And there's another thing that I'm embarrassed to say I chickened out about. Claude had given me, I don't know, six or seven very good questions to ask my doctor, but I didn't ask them all. I think I only asked maybe two or three of them. Why? Well, I guess I was intimidated, which I think a lot of us are with doctors. We think, I don't want to ask these questions. It might sound like I don't trust my doctor, or I don't think he's competent. Also, there are lots of stories about how people are now micromanaging their health care and their interactions with their doctors because they're so busy with their AI and doing Google research. And I just didn't want to be one of those people. The doctor rolls his eyes and says, Oh my God, she's been on the internet. So anyway, I ended up not having as good of a meeting as I wanted because I didn't ask the questions. All right, number three that I did last week proofreading request. Someone sent me a newsletter to take a look at. It was a PDF. I decided to ask Claude to proof it. It was an eight-page newsletter. Claude found nine errors, including a spelling error in the headline. I gently passed the list along to my friend and suggested next time she has an AI proof the document. Okay, number four, ear pods falling out of my ears. My prompt to AI was my new ear pods keep falling out of my ears. Any tips? My AI gave me some really great tips to get the right fit, try different ear tip sizes, adjust how you wear them. And we just had a bit of a brainstorm. And I was really desperate to find a way to make my new earpods work. I was excited about these, especially since I'm going on my trip to Italy. Should I just ditch these new earpods and use the old-fashioned headphone jack, the kind where you plug a wire straight from your phone to your earbuds? That seems so old-fashioned. But actually, those fit better in my ears. So, anyway, after a bit of a conversation, I ended up returning the new AirPods. Claude reminded me that Apple has a two-week return policy, no questions asked. So that was super easy. I was able to walk into the Apple store with confidence instead of groveling and thinking I had to come up with some really good reason for them to accept the return because Claude had told me about the two-week, doesn't matter what the reason is. Okay, now number five, high-paying jobs resistant to AI. I have a friend, no, not me, who has some concerns she might lose her job, replaced by AI. She's in the tech customer service business. I was curious about jobs in AI, so I asked, tell me about high-paying jobs resistant to AI. Got a great response that gave me three areas skills, trades, healthcare. And then it gave me this nice little chart with sample jobs, the salary of those jobs, and then it talked a little bit about some of the nuances, and I ended up having a conversation about some of the specific areas that I thought might be relevant to my friend. And it was a combination of some good information and a helpful conversation to help me understand. I'm not sure I'll talk to my friend about it, but it feels good to understand and maybe being able to get in her shoes, but also maybe have some information that could be helpful. Number six, Google Maps on iPhone. My prompt was I've created several Google Maps and save them. One is for Florence and one is for Rome. I understand how to use them pretty well on my laptop, but I really want to be able to use them very well on my iPhone. Can you give me some tips of how I can set myself up so that those maps are easily accessible and that I can read them on my phone and use them. Turns out the features were hidden. Claude helped me find my way and understand how to effectively use Google Maps on my iPhone. Claude also warned me that I can't use these maps offline. They need to have an internet connection in order for the maps to load. So I'm going to download some maps before I leave for my trip. Claude also let me know that downloadable maps expire after about 30 days. So I don't want to jump on this task too soon because I'll go through the trouble of downloading the maps and then I'll get to Italy and they'll have disappeared. So timing's important. Oh, and another really great tip that I got from Claude is to add each map as a shortcut on my iPhone home screen. Super helpful. Number seven, reducing portion sizes. Okay, I'm still working on reducing the amount of food I eat. I love to eat and I seem to always be hungry. My question to Claude. I want to make an effort to eat less each day, mainly to keep my weight down, although I don't really have a weight problem. But I just feel like I eat too much. It didn't come up with any really new ideas, but it was helpful to just look at this nice list of strategies. Here's one I've been trying to do. Don't eat while watching TV or scrolling. Distracted eating leads to consuming significantly more food. I'm working on that. But honestly, I'm still hungry all the time, like right now. Number eight, lightweight boots for Italian cobblestones. My prompt? I'd like advice on picking a lightweight boot for my trip to Italy. I do not expect to take long hikes, but do expect to do a lot of walking. And there are many cobblestones and uneven surfaces where I'll be walking. I don't want a boot that will take a lot of time to wear in until they're comfortable because I don't have a lot of time. Claude was brilliant. Nice comparison charts, what to look for. I haven't bought any boots yet, but with this advice, I'm feeling confident I'll make the right choice. Number nine, learning to use my sewing machine to do monograms. I know that my sewing machine can do this, but I have no clue how. Number 10, adjustable single beds for my new place. So in a couple of years, I'm moving into the peninsula, which is a senior living community in downtown Charleston. It's under construction right now. It'll be ready in a couple of years. I want to explore single beds. Don't judge me on that. Maybe some point in my future I'll need a double bed, but at this point, I want to explore single beds with the capacity, like a hospital bed, to lift your legs up, your back up, get really comfortable. There's, as I now understand from Claude, a meaningful spectrum here from consumer adjustable bases all the way to full clinical grade home hospital beds. And Claude said, let me lay out the landscape for you. Great. I definitely do not want a full clinical grade home hospital bed, but I would like some of the features that could help me be comfortable when I want to read or watch a movie or whatever in bed, which is usually when I do that. So it was really helpful. Number 11, help with turbotax. The Big Turbo asked me a question about foreign taxes. I had no clue how to answer it. I did not want to upgrade my turbo tax because the upgrade was going to cost me another$100. So I asked Claude and I uploaded a photo of the page of my Vanguard statement, just one page, and I got a quick and great answer. Made perfect sense to me, and it saved me a hundred bucks. I'll take it. Number 12, sharing a Google Calendar. Sometimes I forget things I thought I knew, like how to share my Google Calendar. I created one for Italy and I wanted to share it with my siblings. Claude gave me a quick and clear set of instructions. Bingo, done. Number 13, vacation for my daughter. So my daughter and her husband are in a continuous state of exhaustion. They have a one-year-old and a three-year-old and demanding jobs. Need I say more? I suggested my daughter take a vacation, adults only. Great idea, mom, but I have no time to explore the possibilities. So with Claude's help and a lot of back and forth conversations, I came up with a few good suggestions with all the information my daughter would need to make plans. Only problem? By the time I delivered the suggestions, she and her husband had figured it out, made their reservations, etc. I guess this was a very high priority. Good for them. Number 14 and final example, laptop value estimation. The prompt I use, what is the approximate value of my laptop? And I took a screenshot from my system settings just on your laptop. You go up to and click on about, and it gives you the model number and all the information that would be needed to get an estimate of the value if I wanted to resell it. I just uploaded that little screenshot, got everything I needed. The approximate resale value,$400 to$600, included a list of places where I could sell it if I wanted to. I don't. Anyway, that was super helpful. So those were 14 examples of things that I did last week that I hope will give you some ideas that you might want to try. And I want to ask you to send along to me any examples that you think are particularly interesting or that we haven't talked about and we might want to. So let's move into the recommendation section of the Aged Podcast. My recommendation this week is to take my recent guest, Craig's recommendation, read or listen to Theo of Golden. So I want to double down on Craig's recommendation. It is such a good book. The book is called Theo of Golden, and it's written by Alan Levi. And here's what makes it even more special to me. Alan Levi self-published this book in 2023 when he was well into his 60s and built its readership entirely by hand, grassroots, word of mouth. And now, and has been for a long time, it's at the top of the New York Times bestseller list. Let me give you the gist of his story. One spring morning, a stranger, being Theo, arrives in the small southern town of Golden. Claude and I think the inspiration for this fiction is Columbus, Georgia, but that's just our guess. Anyway, Theo, at age 86, moves temporarily to this little town. He grew up in Portugal and spent a lot of time in New York City, and we know he has some connection to this town. Theo visits the local coffee house where 92 pencil portraits hang on the walls. Sounds like a great coffee house. Theo begins purchasing them one at a time and putting them back in the hands of their rightful. Owners. With each exchange, a story is told, a friendship is born, and a life is altered. It's a book about kindness, about being truly seen by another person, about the quiet miracles that happen when someone actually stops and listens. Feels like a novel interaction these days, doesn't it? Anyway, I am not finished with the book, but I am so interested in finding out why Theo is drawn to Golden. I could, but I won't, ask Claude. But I will say, in a world where we are all staring at our phones and asking AI for advice, and now even building relationships, this book might be exactly the antidote we need. This is about as non-AI as a book can get. All the more reason to read it. So I'm gonna skip homework because I gave you 14 ideas, some of which you might want to try out with your AI. So it's time to wrap up. So let me close by reminding us that AI is both helpful and hazardous, as our New York Times articles prove. We live at Aged on the helpful side, but please remember to protect your information, double check advice, and most important, trust your own judgment. If you love listening to this podcast, please leave a review and or a rating, and please share it, especially with your pals in the 65 Plus crowd. Thanks for listening, and remember it is never too late to learn something new, especially something that might make life easier and especially more fun. Cheers.