TheAIElder

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Sound familiar?

I'm 68 years old, and I've spent most of my adult life at the intersection of technology and human communication. I've made films, run a theater company, co-authored and co-created patented research and technologies, and taught. New tools don't impress me easily. They don't fool me easily either.

So if you think AI is already in your life, you're right. And if you think it deserves your skepticism, you're right about that too.

Using Claude.ai as my "thinking partner", I have begun a project called ElderClaude. It is my attempt to make sense of artificial intelligence from where I actually stand: an older adult who came to AI confused, cautious, and more than a little suspicious. I'm not writing from the other side of that confusion. I'm writing from inside the journey — one I hope we, as the New Elders, can take together and actually gain from.

I'm also writing it with help.

Claude — the AI system made by Anthropic — is my co-author, research partner, and occasional sparring partner. I want you to know that from the start, because transparency is the whole point. If ElderClaude is about anything, it's about understanding what AI actually is, what it's doing, and who it's serving. That begins here: I'm using the tool I'm writing about, openly. You can watch how that goes.

I offer both not to frighten you, but because you deserve honesty over reassurance. The goal here isn't to make you feel better about AI. It's to make you better at using it.