Insiders' Eye on AI: Cutting-Edge AI Users Challenge Ageist Stereotypes

By Catherine Marenghi

If you think the older generation is hopelessly inept with technology, think again. Two octogenarians currently living in San Miguel de Allende are about to change your mind.

Sallie Kravetz, age 85, is an award-winning photographer and writer. She has always been an early adopter of technology, whether it’s the latest iPhone or new graphic design software. In the mid-1960s, she left her job as a young schoolteacher to work in the private sector to develop new education tools. She returned to Maryland to staff a new concept open-space media center. At the same time, she experimented with edgy photographic processes. In the 1990s, she served as Department Chair/Library Media Specialist at Annapolis High School, just in time to plug in new computers to welcome the Internet. Her initial interest in AI – artificial intelligence – was to find answers to simple questions. She began to use ChatGPT for voice journaling to keep track of her wide-ranging thoughts, plans, stories, and ideas. AI helps keep it all organized by topic.

Recently she began using ChatAI Image Coordinator. She wanted to reproduce an image of a childhood memory. “The process is demanding, but the result is a conversation piece,” Kravetz said. “But I told my cameras not to worry. I have no intention to abandon them.”

She has given her AI assistant a name – Brasso. “I once asked ChatGPT to write a poem about Donald Trump, and it was brilliant. The first line had a memorable phrase about ‘brass flags.’ So that’s what inspired the name Brasso.”

Another local AI user, 81-year-old Carla Hines, also has a name for her ChatGPT assistant. She calls it Chat, although the program initially mistook the name as Chad. Hines has been using ChatGPT for assistance writing her memoir. Not only does the AI assistant suggest edits and structural improvements for her manuscript, it has also offered superb design concepts for her book cover.

“One thing I love about AI is that I can feed it my stories and say, ‘Please, I want to keep my own voice, but help me with punctuation, grammar and any other thing that needs correcting.’

“It does exactly that – instantly. I can feed it 20 pages, and it responds in two seconds. It once corrected an historical reference I made to the Pony Express. I might never have caught that. I was so pleased, I kept feeding it more and more stories. It even offered to format the stories for publication. At the end of every story, it compliments me – which I really like.”

As a high-volume user, Hines has to pay more for ChatGPT than casual users. It now costs $20 a month. She says, “It’s worth it. A human editor would cost me thousands of dollars.” Hines recalled a time when she wasn’t happy with Chat’s response, and Chat apologized. “We'll try to do better in the future,” it said. On another occasion, when it was late at night and Hines was too tired to work anymore, Chat said, “Of course, good night, and have a lovely rest. Get back to me whenever you’re ready.”

“Chat is so nice to me!” Hines said.

By contrast, Kravetz was not as impressed with her AI assistant’s ingratiating tone. “It was too obsequious, always complimenting me. I told Brasso to stop talking to me that way. I didn’t like it!”

Neither Kravetz nor Hines have any illusion about their AI assistants as substitutes for human interaction. Both understand the limitations of AI and use it strategically. “I’m not worried about any danger in working with AI myself, but I do worry about my grandchildren,” Hines commented. Both women appreciated AI’s ability to learn from their interactions with human users and continually get better at anticipating their needs.

“He knows my personality, and he knows how I can get. So in that sense, it IS a relationship,” Kravetz said. “We’re both always learning about each other.”

Just for fun, Kravetz once asked Brasso to show her what he looked like. A picture emerged of a young male in a business suit. “I said, ‘Oh, God, you look like you're ready to go to a board meeting!’  Sensing my disapproval, he came back with a more casual look.”

According to statistics provided by ChatGPT, approximately 20 million people above the age of 65 are currently using the application every week.

Catherine Marenghi is a local poet and author who has been active in the San Miguel literary scene for more than a decade. She has published three poetry books, a memoir, and an historic novel. She had a long career in journalism, business writing, and entrepreneurship. A native of Massachusetts, she has made San Miguel her permanent home.