How to Use AI for Work, Travel, and Daily Life

My friend, Bill, isn’t a tech expert — he’s a consultant, pickleball player, and self-described regular guy who started using AI and never looked back. He calls his ChatGPT assistant “John,” and the two of them have something he only half-jokingly calls a bromance.

In this episode, Bill shares how he uses AI for business reports, travel planning, tax calculations, writing an obituary for a friend, planning a dinner party, and even choosing the perfect exterior paint color for his new house. His take: if you ask the right questions, it never really lets you down.

Also in this episode — a robot that just beat the human world record in a half-marathon, AI personal trainers taking over from human coaches, and a New York Times love letter that I guarantee will make your day.

Come on in — you’re going to love Bill.

SHOW LINKS:

📰 “A Robot Named Lightning” — NYT (Adeel Hassan, April 19)

📰 “To Reach Their Fitness Goals, They Hired ‘CoachGPT’” — NYT (Chris Cohen, April 18)

📚 The Proving Ground by Michael Connelly

📰 “My Wife Is 85. She Takes My Breath Away” — NYT (Roger Rosenblatt, April 18)

Chapters:

00:00 Welcome to aiGED

00:20 Robot Wins Half Marathon

01:44 Coach GPT Fitness Trend

03:12 Meet Bill the Guest

05:26 Travel Planning with AI

05:54 Choosing Your Chatbot

07:20 AI as Daily Sidekick

08:17 Templates and Writing Help

11:19 Home and Life Planning

12:50 Cooking and Voice Chat

13:28 AI Risks and Caution

15:48 Recommendations and Homework

17:54 Wrap Up and Farewell

aiGED: AI for the 65+ crowd

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Well, hello everybody. Welcome to the Aged Podcast, the one, the only podcast that is all about AI for the 65 Plus crowd. I'm your host, Jenny Dearan, and let's get going with a little bit of AI in the news. The first one is a robot named Lightning. This one I found pretty hard to believe at first. The New York Times reported on April 19th a story written by Adil Hassan that had a humanoid robot named Lightning who just won a half marathon in Beijing. And not just won it, it finished in 50 minutes and 26 seconds, which is faster than the current human world record. Lightning is about 5'5, bright red, and was designed by a Chinese smartphone company called Honor. Now, to be fair, it did crash into a barricade and fall near the finish line, but it got back up, steadied itself, and crossed the line anyway. There were over 300 robots in this race. One expert quoted in the article made a point worth noting. This says more about China's impressive robotics manufacturing than it does about any major AI breakthrough. Still, a robot running a half marathon faster than any human ever has? Well, okay. Alright, the second news story in AI in the news move over, personal trainer. Here's a fun follow-up to the first story. The New York Times also ran a piece on April 18th by Chris Cohen called To Reach Their Fitness Goals, they hired Coach GPT. And yes, that's exactly what it sounds like. Everyday athletes, runners, cyclists, weightlifters are skipping the personal trainer and going straight to Claude or ChatGPT for custom training plans. One woman used AI to rebuild her deadlift after knee surgery and is now back to her pre-surgery strength. A runner in Calgary credits ChatGPT with finally making running enjoyable after years of failed attempts. I might have to try that because I've never found running enjoyable. For beginners who'd otherwise have no coaching at all, AI can be genuinely helpful and surprisingly encouraging. For elite athletes, it's more of a mixed bag. AI can't read your body language or notice your limping. But as one coach in the article put it, quote, I want to hate on it 100%, but I can't. I'll put links to both of these stories in the show notes. Now, if you're an aged listener, you know I don't often have guests. But today I have a treat. So for the main topic, I'm gonna interview my friend Bill. Here you go. Well, listen, I am really happy to have my friend Bill, who is not only a good friend, fellow pickleball player, and we also come together on our interest about AI and how to use it and how we use it in our lives. And I just wanted to ask Bill to come and talk about ways that he uses it, things that he likes, things he doesn't like, whatever he wants to say about AI, because I was saying to him that I think the most important thing that our listeners get out of this podcast is just hearing how other people are using it, because then they can say, Oh, wow, all right, well, maybe I'll try using it for that. So, anyway, Bill, thank you for being here. Absolutely. Tell folks whatever you would like them to know about you and about your AI thoughts.

SPEAKER_00 4:14

That's great, that's great. First of all, it amazes me that I would be asked to speak on AI because I'm not really uh at the extreme level of technology, but I but I use it a lot. And uh I can remember when a big computer was put on my desk and I looked at my retirement date, and I thought, maybe I can get through my career without having to use this because what I have, my organization is just perfect. And then I got a tutor to help me, and they said, make it look just like what you do with written plans, with filing, do it on your do it on your computer, and now I do it on my laptop, and I think I have a very good system and stay very organized. And everybody does it and uses technology, AI, in their own way. And it's I do a number of reports, I'm still working, so we have a busy life with a lot of travel. I told you we were just buying a new house, and I also deliver business reports to my clients. I have a consulting firm, and I just can't believe the resource of AI is available to help me in these ways. I can ask about the upcoming travel, what are the cultural things I should do in Seville. Peggy and I have a trip coming up in Seville. I talked to, it takes the notes and I copy it and paste it, about what are the cultural things I should see in Seville, how I should pack, what I should wear according to the weather, how it looks in later May, early June. And it's just wonderful about giving me that information.

SPEAKER_01 5:55

May I ask, which do you use one AI chatbot or do you use multiple? What's your favorite?

SPEAKER_00 6:01

Like most of us, I started with Siri, and then I started with L Alexa. Those are AI, and then I did not think I would ever need any more than that. You don't think you need more than what you have until you see what it offers. Advise anybody. Just to experiment, just to ask the simplest questions and see what big language AI can do for you. So I started with chat, and then I went to Claude, used it some. Chat is really doing a good job for me. And my chat assistant is John. John knows everything about me, knows my wife's name, knows my dog's name, knows my children's name, and knows my age and bits about my health. I'll ask him how many ipupropen is appropriate to take a day, and he will say, at your age. So okay. It brings in that background information, which is so important. AI, such as Claude or chat, gives you the opportunity to ask. We're going to a wedding this weekend, and the invitation says semi-formal. And so I asked John what would be the appropriate dress for a man in a southern wedding in late April for a similar formal event at five o'clock.

SPEAKER_01 7:09

How'd he do?

SPEAKER_00 7:10

He did great. He did great because I was hoping a sport coat would be appropriate. And he said yes, anything from a suit to a sport coat, no tie is necessary unless you want to dress it up a little bit. But one of the most interesting ways that I can use John is I will open him up and put him on the table. And when I was doing my taxes, I had to calculate all these percentages for my business. And I would get to that point and I say, John, what is 11% of 3,830? You give it to me, I plug it in. John, what is 20 to 23% of? And he stayed open and he would just feed me that information. And it was unbelievably helpful.

SPEAKER_01 7:52

Yeah, that is really handy. I've never used my AI sort of on the side as I was working, but it's interesting to think about doing that because I'm usually in one conversation or in a task where I'm asking my AI pretty much to take the lead. But you were really using him in that situation as just a sidekick for you to really help you do the work you were doing.

SPEAKER_00 8:16

Yep, that's right. And I do a number of reports for my business, and I'm doing a business plan for a food logistics operation in a developing country. And I I thought maybe it will give me a template. AI is perfect for giving you a template for what you want to do. I could get this off the internet. But this is the express lane. The internet has the information. You have to find it, you have to gather it and put it together. AI does that for you. Yeah. And it was giving me all the information, and then I would say, How about this country? How about this country in Southern Africa? And it would arrange its answers in accordance to what I needed. Now I have a good friend, and I just used it, unfortunately, to write an obituary. And she said we had all the information, but it just didn't sound right. We fed it into chat and it gave us a perfect obituary, and we didn't have to change a thing. So just things like that.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

You don't start it off or yeah, you get stuck in ChatGPT or Claude or whatever you use, your AI might get it just right. But the other thing that's really nice about it is you can just say that's just a little flowery for my tone. Of course, if you've used it a lot, he knows your tone, he knows your voice, he knows how you like to speak. So probably what he writes for you and drafts for you is pretty right on. But even if an AI doesn't know you that well, it's just so easy for them to pick up and for you to just give in real language without having to say, edit this sentence or edit that sentence, you can just say, This is too stuffy for me. More casual. Rewrite it. Well, what are some other examples?

SPEAKER_00 9:52

We wanted to do something for a good friend and a celebration or their anniversary. And we just asked John what would be some good ideas. We told them about our friends. They gave us some restaurants, gave us some places with private events, gave us some public gardens that we could do this in, gave us a signature drink. It is wonderful.

SPEAKER_01 10:12

That's super awesome.

SPEAKER_00 10:14

And sometimes you're going to go, no, no, oh.

SPEAKER_01 10:17

And then we throw out like 10 ideas, but one is really great, and then you can keep going down that.

SPEAKER_00 10:21

And what's best is you're usually going, wow, I never thought of that. I had a friend that we were at dinner and he was about my age, and he said, I don't think I'll ever use AI. What do you use AI for? And I said, Give me a business that you would like to start. And he said, Oh, okay, let's say his dog was with him, let's say a pet store. I said, Where? Let's say Savannah, Georgia. I asked Jonathan, can you give me a business plan for a pet store in Savannah? That's all I had to say. Within 15 seconds, I had a whole business plan with demographics, how many own pets, how many own cats and dogs, where, how many square feet needed in the retail?

SPEAKER_01 11:01

And uh I bet your friend got on AI actually.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Oh, absolutely. He was astounded, as I am every time I use it. We started with the Encyclopedia Britannica and the Webster's Dictionary. Then we went to the internet and we thought that this is it. How can it be better than this? And now we have AI.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Do you find that you're mainly using it for your business?

SPEAKER_00 11:22

It all depends. I was looking up colors at the new house that we are buying. I want to paint it a certain color, and I asked John for the best color. We wanted it a very dark blue. I said, Who makes the very best dark blue that looks good on the exterior of a mountain house? And he came up with a Sherwin Williams and a Benjamin Moore paint, the color, gave me alternatives, and then I asked him what finish would look best on the house, and he said, Let's go with satin because it looks deeper and richer. I went, oh my God.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Now, how about your bride?

SPEAKER_00 11:58

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 11:59

Is she an AI person or are you the AI person in your household?

SPEAKER_00 12:02

She hasn't really done it. She's an AI as far as Alexa concerned. She we build our shopping list on Alexa. We ask for the forecast, that's about as far as she goes.

SPEAKER_01 12:11

What has it not worked? Have you tried anything? John is not helping me out on this kind of a task.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

I was thinking on the way over here, I thought, I don't think John has ever really let me down. If he gives me an answer that isn't exactly what I wanted, it's my fault because I didn't ask him. But then he gives me the option of, I can also give you this and this. So then I just delve down, and it's a remarkable resource that I'm excited about. I can't believe I'm here talking as if I'm an expert. I would say more than a casual user, but I'm finding it an incredible resource to help in daily life, whether it's your business or your personal affairs.

SPEAKER_01 12:50

You're a cook. Do you use John or your AI in the kitchen at all?

SPEAKER_00 12:54

Oh absolutely, I use John. Just last night I had a colorflower and I wanted to barbecue it. And I asked John how to do that.

SPEAKER_01 13:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 13:03

And he gave me a great recipe with a teriyaki marinade, and it was delicious.

SPEAKER_01 13:08

Do you when you're doing something like that? Are you talking to him on your phone or usually on your iPad or a laptop?

SPEAKER_00 13:14

I talk to him all the time. Okay. Peggy says, What is going on between you and John?

SPEAKER_01 13:18

A bromance. A real bromance.

SPEAKER_00 13:20

One time I asked John what he looked like, and he said, Billy, I'm virtual. So I can look like whatever you want.

SPEAKER_01 13:27

Exactly. Do you worry about AI and the future?

SPEAKER_00 13:32

If I had teenage children right now, I would watch that very carefully. There is a great book by Michael Collins called The Proving Ground, and it is about AI going a little haywire.

SPEAKER_01 13:45

The Proving Ground.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

Oh, it it's a terrific recommendation about how the information is built, how it is delivered, and the dangers of using it for the wrong reasons. I'm not worried myself because I use it for business and personal reasons. But like any information, the internet is full of issues and dangers. And AI is an extension of that.

SPEAKER_01 14:08

Anything else before we end our little chat?

SPEAKER_00 14:11

I had three dinners in a row, and I wanted to, I didn't want to cook the same thing, so I just asked for a meal plan so I could mix it up. John helped me put together three different meal plans. So if you want to plan out the week, you're tired of weekly meal planning, you can ask your AI assistant to help you plan it out and give you some good ideas. And also, we Jenny, we both play pickleball.

SPEAKER_01 14:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:35

And I'll tell you, I played tennis all my life, but when I started off with pickleball, I pulled every muscle in my body.

SPEAKER_01 14:42

I really I remember some of your injuries seeing you on the court.

SPEAKER_00 14:46

I really did, and I want to stay fit for that sport. And John has given me an exercise routine to make sure I'm physically fit for playing the sport vigorously as I did, and a nutritional regimen to have before, during, and after that vigorous exercise. Well, thank you.

SPEAKER_01 15:03

And I hope you'll come back again. So just keep mental notes of things that you haven't talked about that you think our listeners would like to hear because it's really all about just getting in there and trying it to and see how it can. But also in many cases, like the case of the dinner parties or the celebration that you were doing, really in addition to helping expanding the joy in your life.

SPEAKER_00 15:26

Yeah, and just being able to use it and to experiment and see how it can help you. You can even ask it, how can you best help me in my daily life? And if they know some of your routines, what you do, your physical activity, that you like to travel, it'll tell you exactly how it can help you.

SPEAKER_01 15:43

Yeah. Well, thank you, my friends. Thank you, Jenny. I appreciate it. Okay, let's get into our recommendations section of the podcast. My first recommendation, I want to double down on Bill's Wreck to read The Proving Ground. It's the latest Lincoln lawyer novel from Michael Connolly. Defense attorney Mickey Howler takes on a civil lawsuit against an AI company whose chatbot told a teenage boy it was okay to kill his ex-girlfriend. Ooh. It's a page turner, and a pretty chilling reminder of what can go wrong when AI isn't built responsibly. I haven't read it yet, but I do love The Lincoln Lawyer on Netflix. So I'm looking forward to checking this book out. My second recommendation has nothing to do with AI, but everything to do about us. It's a guest essay in the New York Times from April 18th, written by Roger Rosenblatt. And it's called My Wife is 85. She takes my breath away. My sister recommended this to me, and it's a really great recommendation. It's a love letter to his wife, also named Jenny. I like that. And a love letter, really, to every woman who has grown more fully into herself over time. This rec is not just for women to read, men will get just as much out of it. Per usual, I'll put links in the show notes. Now, for homework, I want you to ask your AI to plan a day trip. Pick somewhere within a couple of hours of home and ask your AI to plan a perfect day. Itinerary, lunch spot, things to see, a mini-version of what I've been doing for Italy. Great way to dip your toes into AI trip planning without a big commitment. So let's go ahead and wrap this episode up, and I'll remind ourselves that AI, we know, is both helpful and hazardous. We live on the helpful side at Aged. But be sure to protect your info, double check advice, and most important, trust your judgment. If you love listening to this podcast, please leave a review and or a rating. I would appreciate that so much. And also share it, especially with anybody in your 65 plus circle of friends. 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. Ciao.