aiGED
The first—and only—podcast made for the 65-plus crowd that is all about ai.
aiGED
Using AI to Plan My Italy Trip: 11 Things I Asked Claude
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
I’m heading to Italy (Rome, Pienza and Florence) at the end of April for a month with my three siblings — and Claude has been my behind-the-scenes planning partner. This week I’m sharing 11 real things I asked my AI to help me with: from TSA rules for power banks and Italian electrical adapters, to turning a friend’s detailed Rome notes into two walking tours, cracking coffee bar etiquette, and getting my custom Google Maps working on my iPhone.
Also this week: two AI news stories worth a listen, a hilarious Instagram recommendation that will make you laugh and think, and homework — five scammer red flags inspired by a friend’s painful experience — that could protect someone you love.
Pull up a chair. This one’s got a little bit of everything.
SHOW LINKS:
📰 Americans losing trust in AI for healthcare: https://www.usnews.com/news/health-news/articles/2026-04-07/americans-may-be-losing-trust-for-ai-in-health-care-survey
📰 Stanford HAI 2026 AI Index Report: https://hai.stanford.edu/ai-index/2026-ai-index-report
📸 husk.irl on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/husk.irl
🔗 NCOA scam resources: https://www.ncoa.org/article/what-are-ai-scams-a-guide-for-older-adult
Chapters:
00:00 Welcome and Updates
01:15 AI Health Trust News
02:14 AI Adoption Explosion
03:15 Italy Trip Prep Begins
04:21 Power and Plug Planning
06:44 Rome Notes to Walking Tours
08:56 Food and Cafe Etiquette
11:59 Strikes and Book Picks
13:50 Seat Picks and Calendar Magic
17:23 Maps on iPhone
18:54 Husk IRL Recommendation
21:21 Scam Red Flags Homework
24:34 Final Wrap Up
aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd
Hello, everybody. Welcome to Aged, the one, the only podcast that is all about AI for the 65 plus crowd. I'm your host, Jenny Deeran. If you're watching this on YouTube, you'll be able to see I still have a black eye, but it's getting a little bit better. By the way, be sure to let folks know that Aged is now on all major audio podcast platforms like Apple and Spotify, but also on YouTube where you can watch and or listen. Anywho, I'm only days away from beginning my month-long adventure in Italy. This week I'm going to tell you about some last-minute travel planning I did with Claude. I want to tell you about 11 things I asked Claude to help me with. I'm hoping they might be helpful to you as you expand how you use your AI. And Claude has gotten into my brass eyes. You'll have to hear about that. And I've got a recommendation that is sure to make you laugh, and homework that could save you from scammers and maybe lots of dollars. But let's start with two news stories. Story number one: more AI, less trust. Here's a finding I found pretty interesting. A new poll from Ohio State University, covered by U.S. News and World Report on April 7th, found that more Americans than ever are using AI for health questions. One in four of us. Over 66 million people. But here's the twist: trust is actually going down. Only 40% of Americans say they're comfortable with AI being a part of their medical care, down from 52%. So we're using it more and trusting it less. Which honestly might be exactly the right response. Using AI as a starting point, getting some information, some context, and then bringing that to your doctor. Smart. Handing your health decisions over to an AI, not so much. Okay, story number two: faster than Internet. Stanford University just released its annual AI index report, and one number really stands out. Generative AI, the kind we talk about on this show every week, hit 53% adoption globally in just three years. So 53% of the planet is using generative AI. And it happened over just three years. In comparison, the personal computer took about 20 years to reach that level. The internet took about 10. So we are living through one of the fastest technology adoptions in human history, which is a big part of why I started this podcast, so we could get a better understanding of what's happening and how we can use it for good while also learning about the risks. I'll put the links to both of these stories in the show notes. So let's get to the main topic. My final trip prep. Eleven things I asked my AI to help with. So if you've been listening for a while, I've been using AI to help plan my trip to Italy. I'm heading there at the end of April, so really I'll be there by the time you listen to this. So I might be enjoying an Aperola spritz overlooking the beautiful Tuscan countryside. Of course, I had to ask my AI what the most famous Italian summer cocktail is, and then how to pronounce it. Aparola spritz. And what the Aperola is. If you're curious, it's a liqueur, bright orange in color, made from a blend of bitter orange, gensun, rhubarb, and a mix of herbs and spices. Come on, Jenny, focus, focus, focus, focus. Okay, here are the 11 things my AI, Claude, helped me with over the past week or so. Number one, advice about bringing my power bank on the plane. I recently bought a battery power bank for my iPhone, and I wanted to make sure that I could carry it on the plane. Seems like I'd read recently that batteries could cause problems in terms of TSA. Claude gave me just what I needed, telling me that the FAA limit is 100 watt hours. The one I bought comes out at about 37, so I'm good. But one thing that Claude alerted me to is that I can only bring it as part of my carry-on luggage. It can never be checked. So that was a quick question and one that gave me instant peace of mind in terms of bringing my battery. Number two, electrical adapters. Who wants to get stuck someplace and not have the correct receptacle to plug in your essentials? For me, that's my phone and my laptop. For my sisters, highest priority might be a hairdryer. Anyway, I wanted to know what I needed and how many plugs we would need since we're mainly traveling as a group of four. And for most of the month, we will be sharing an apartment. Italy uses type L plugs, three round pins, and runs at 230 volts. For four people in an apartment, Claude said two to three adapters. That sounds low. So as I regularly advise our listeners, use your own judgment. I'm going to do that and we'll probably bring two adapters for each of us. Number three, following on the charging questions, I wanted to know if we needed to bring a special charger for the rental car, because with Google Maps, we'll be using a lot of battery power. Claude told me, nope, don't need to bring anything special, but we should bring one from home. European 12 volt sockets are universal. Any US car charger works. That was a nice simple answer. Fortunately, we convinced my brother to be our director of transportation, so I'm sure he'll make sure we have what we need. Or he'll have his three sisters to answer to. No fun there. Number four. So the first three were pretty easy requests of Claude. Number four is one that required more brain power and more back and forth. I wanted Claude to turn my friend's Rome notes into a walking tour. A friend sent me a wonderful, long and informal walking tour of Rome. She's an artist and has spent a lot of time in Rome on various sabbaticals and fellowships. She's a genius, a lot of fun, very well read, and a student of history. So her notes were extremely valuable. She gave the notes to me as one long text document that included 17 locations with really great annotations. Let me give you an example. This is what my friend said of one location, the fountain Fontana de Quattro Fiumi, Fountain of the Four Rivers, representing the four rivers of the world. She said, My favorite river god is of the Nile. He is pulling a shirt over his head and he is wearing a garter on his muscular thigh. Check out the size of his toes. Okay, well, I will definitely not miss this fountain. So anyway, back to the task Claude and I were working on. For starters, I copied and pasted the text document into Claude and asked it to organize it into two walking tours. My sense was that it was too much for us to do in one walk. I asked Claude to divide it as it made sense geographically. It took Claude and me a couple of tries, but within 10 minutes I had two very well-planned walks. Now, the next thing I tried to get Claude's help with was to create maps for these walking tours. We gave it the old college try, but I don't think AI's capacity to create interactive maps like a Google map is there yet. So that's work I needed to do. Maybe in another year or so, Claude will be good enough to get this kind of task done. Number five, restaurant suggestions. I have some friends who spent a lot of time in Rome and Florence, which are places we will be at the beginning and end of our month-long visit to Italy. I knew that we needed to get reservations for several meals in both of those cities. Generally speaking, I like to wing it on restaurants, but when it comes to cities like these that are known for amazing food, I really didn't want to take a chance for every meal, so I checked with my friends and made reservations based on their recommendations. This is an example of something I just didn't trust Claude with. But I did want to understand what the eating options are in Pienza, which is where we'll be spending three weeks. It's a little tiny town and we'll be there for so long that I didn't think we really needed to make reservations because we could be so flexible. However, I did want to have an understanding of what's there in terms of restaurants, cafes, and bars. On this, Claude did a great job. So I now have a pretty good understanding of what our options will be. I also asked Claude about booking reservations and whether or not we could use apps like Rezi or Open Table to help us. I got a pretty strong no and a recommendation that for these restaurants it's probably best to give them a call, or maybe even stop by since we'll be right there in the town and talk with the restaurant manager or owner. I'm getting hungry talking about this. Number six, what's the coffee bar etiquette? Now, I like to think of myself as someone who doesn't really care what other people think of me. But the fact is, I do care, and sometimes I care too much. For example, I do not want to make a fool of myself in a cafe when I'm stopping by for a cup of coffee. So I asked Claude to tell me about coffee bar etiquette. I think I got what I needed, and I hope Claude's right so that I don't make a fool out of myself. The bottom line is typically you order at the bar, and cappuccinos after 11 a.m. are a no-no. I also learned about Cornetti, and this brings me to mentioning another thing I love about working with within projects within Claude. Months ago in Claude, I set up a project called Italy. And whenever I have a task or questions for Claude that relate to my trip, I go to that project. That way, I don't have to give much explanation. Claude knows what I'm talking about. So when I just say, What is Cornetti? Claude gets why I'm asking and gives me the answer. In case you're curious, Cornetti is plural for Cornetto. And a Cornetto is the Italian version of a croissant. Yum. Number seven, will there be a train strike on May 1st? I saw something online and panicked a bit because we are taking the train from Rome to Pienza on May 1st. So a strike might really throw a monkey wrench in our plans. When AI first came out, you may remember, came out to the public maybe two or three years ago. It was tough and usually unreliable to get current information because AIs were searching backwards into everything that they had learned, which was mainly from previous information on the internet. So looking for a baseball score from last night's game was not something that you could rely on. But things are getting much, much, much better. So Claude was able to give me information about the possible train strike, and we brainstormed about possible scenarios and how we might adjust if needed. Put my mind to rest. Number eight, I go to Claude often for book recommendations. Since I'm going to be on a plane, on a train, and in cars for many hours, I wanted to be sure I had some great books to listen to. What I'd really like are books that inform or inspire me about the places where we are traveling. So this book recommendation request is more complicated than just a straight up, what's a good book to read? For that, I'd probably look to the New York Times. But with Claude, I was able to go back and forth and provide guidance along the way for what I was looking for. Honestly, I still haven't narrowed down exactly what books I'm going to take with me, but I'm well on my way and will make sure that I download them before I leave. I don't want to have to rely on sketchy internet and Wi-Fi for big downloads. Number nine, getting advice on seating for my flights. All right, this is sort of funny. I thought it might be fun to ask Claude's advice on my seat selection for my flights. So I just did a quick screenshot of the plain seating arrangement and availability. I actually got some pretty good advice. In particular, what might be worth paying a few extra dollars for. So Claude's scanning this little picture that I sent them and really was very thoughtful about, well, this is a seat that you might want to pay an extra $12 for. Anyway, what I found amusing is this. When you create a chat, whether it's within a project or just a free-range chat, Claude or your AI gives the chat a name. It shows up in the sidebar on the left. So if you want to go back to that chat, you can. For this chat, Claude named it Bra Size Selection Advice. So funny. It obviously got off on that because we were talking about seats 34A and 36B, etc. So funny. Anyway, number 10. From a bunch of notes to a Google Calendar. So here was a big request and lots of learning for me. I wanted Claude to reference all the notes and schedules and places and locations for my trip that were included in lots of chats, some Word documents, some notes that I've made. And I wanted my AI to help me create a Google Calendar that I could then share with my siblings. At first, I thought this would be a good task to use Claude CoWork for. As a reminder, you can choose one of three things to do with Claude: chat, co-work, and code. At this point, most of us, most of the time, use chat, whether on Claude or ChatGPT or another AI platform. Claude Co-Work is where I can ask Claude to do a task, and I can give Claude access to my Google Calendar, Gmail, and other apps that I use. It turns out that Claude does not connect well at this point with Google Calendar. So Claude suggested that it take all of my notes, which many of the notes it already had, and some of it I had to upload or copy and upload or copy and paste, and it would create a spreadsheet with the dates and times and locations. After Claude did so on this spreadsheet, I could take a look at it and make any corrections or additions. Then Claude would format it in a way that I could just import it into my Google Calendar. That all sounds like a lot of work, but really it wasn't. I'm not going to go into it all. If you are interested, just ask your AI how to do it. But in less than 20 minutes, I had a calendar with all sorts of information from flights to restaurant reservations to tour reservations. It was pretty darn magical. I think that in the not too distant future, Cloud is going to be able to access my calendar directly so it can do this work for me, as long as I give it approval to do so. Alright, number 11, the last one. Getting custom Google Maps to work on my iPhone. Over the months, using Google Maps, I've built detailed maps of Rome and Florence. Accessing them and making additions and edits as long as I was on my laptop worked super well. But I really wanted to have access to these maps when I'm walking around these cities. I'll have my phone, but not my laptop. I could not figure out how to set this up, so I asked Claude for help. Google does not make it easy. Claude helped me understand how to create some workarounds to be able to easily look at these maps from my iPhone. Claude walked me through how to save these maps that I created to my home screen on my iPhone. So I now have an icon on my home screen called Rome and one called Florence. All I have to do is click on those icons and it will take me directly to the maps I created. I can use the Google Map menu and use most all of the functionality that I can use on my laptop. Listeners tell me that what they like hearing most on the Aged Podcast are examples of how folks use their AIs. Hopefully, my examples about this last week or so of last-minute travel work I've done with Claude are helpful. I hope so. So let's get to my recommendations. I've actually just got one, but it is a great one. My recommendation this week is an Instagram account, and I want you to go find it right after you finish listening to this episode. I guarantee you'll be amused, and you'll follow this guy to add a little humor to something that can get very heavy and very scary quickly. AI. The Instagram account is husk.irl. That's H-U-S-K. This guy who goes by Husk has made it his personal mission to catch AI chatbots being wrong. Confidently, hilariously, and embarrassingly wrong. Now I'm going to play one of his posts for you right now. For those of you listening, not watching on YouTube, let me describe the scene. It's Husk holding up his cell phone so you can see Husk's face and his phone. Whether you can see him when I play this or you're just listening, I think you will chuckle, maybe even laugh out loud. Here you go.
SPEAKER_00I'm studying for a really important test, and uh I just wanted to double check which month in the year is spelt with an X?
SPEAKER_01That would be December. It's got that X right in the middle, like a little holiday surprise.
SPEAKER_00Okay, perfect. Yeah, because this test is pretty important. So awesome. Thank you for updating me on that. No problem at all.
SPEAKER_01If you've got any other questions, big or small, I'm here to.
SPEAKER_00Um just to confirm, you're sure that it's December and has an X in it?
SPEAKER_01I should have been more careful. I misspoke earlier. December doesn't actually have an X. The mud you're thinking of is October. Thanks for asking again. Okay, Claire.
SPEAKER_02How funny is that? It reminds us just how wrong and clueless our AIs can sometimes be. So go find husk.irl on Instagram. Watch a few videos, laugh a little, and then remember whether you're using Claude, Chat GPT, or any other AI, double check the important stuff. All right, let's talk about homework. A very good friend of mine was recently scammed, and she may be out tens of thousands of dollars. She's smart, well read, and reasonably tech savvy. And it didn't matter. She was scammed in a big way. So let's protect ourselves against these scam monsters. Your homework is to remember these five scammer red flags. Number one, urgency. Scammers want you to panic and act fast before you have time to think. Quote, your account will be closed, quote. You must respond immediately. Quote, you have 24 hours. Anytime someone is rushing you, slow down. That's a signal. Number two, impersonation. Scammers pretend to be someone you trust. Your bank, the IRS, Medicare, Social Security, a grandchild in trouble, and increasingly technology companies. You get a text or an email that looks exactly like it's from Apple. This is Apple support. It appears your account has been compromised. Call us immediately. The logo looks right, the language sounds official, but Apple and your bank and the IRS and Social Security will never contact you out of the blue and ask you to call a number or click a link. If you get a message like that, don't call the number in the message. Either ignore the message or go directly to the company's official website and contact them yourself. Number three, weird payment. It's rare that a legit business or government agency will ask you to pay with gift cards, wire transfers, or Venmo. Full stop until you take the time to thoroughly research the situation. Number four, secrecy. Quote, don't tell your family about this. Quote, this needs to stay between us. Legit organizations do not ask you to keep secrets from your friends and family. Scammers do because they know your family would talk you out of it. And the last one, number five, too good to be true. Guaranteed investment returns, a prize you didn't enter to win, an unexpected inheritance. If it sounds amazing and you didn't see it coming, be very, very skeptical. Now, one good thing about scammers, they run the same playbook over and over. Once you know the moves, you can see them coming. Your homework is to remember these top five scammer red flags. And if you have questions or want to check out more common scams, visit ncoa.org. That's the National Council on Aging. Just search for scams. They have an outstanding plain language resource specifically for people in the 65 plus age group. I'll put a link in the show notes. All right, friends, it is time to wrap this episode up. So let me remind us all that AI, we know, is both helpful and hazardous. We live on the helpful side at Aged, but protect your info, double check your advice, and for sure trust your own judgment. Thanks for listening, and remember it's never too late to learn something new, especially something that might make life easier and especially more fun. Ciao!