If you’ve been following along, I’m a new empty nester on a personal transformation journey from paranoid technophobe to occasional AI user. 

And now that our kids are grown and living elsewhere, my husband Brad and I have more time together. This includes having more time to talk about our career goals and what happens on our weekdays.

So learning about AI isn’t just a fun hobby for me. It’s also a way to stay updated on what affects my husband, because a large percentage of his work now includes AI. Unless I want to spend our conversations whispering lines from the Terminator (believe me, it’s a temptation), then I need to know what’s happening and be able to think about it objectively.

This was also an eventful week for my own professional life. Why? Because I started a dialogue with Anthropic’s Claude AI about my daily writing and marketing routine, allowed it to make a schedule for me, and then imported that schedule into Google calendar. 

The old me would have NEVER done such a thing. In the past, I’d go on a rant about privacy and cloud apps, the AI takeover, and eventually I’d end on a diatribe about neural implants. Then I’d go back to my paper calendar and sticky notes. But now? I’m (tentatively) open to change. Slow change, but change nonetheless.

It all boils down to this: Am I making progress for my own growth in overcoming technophobia, or am I foolishly going along with the crowd into the ever-looming apocalypse? Only time will tell.

Here are some other things I’m thinking about this week (robotics edition)…

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Something New:

• AI designs self-repairing metamachine. Northwestern University engineers used an AI to create a new species of modular, agile-legged robot. These “metamachines” assemble themselves, flip themselves upright when turned over, and recover from major injuries. “They can survive being chopped in half or cut up into many pieces. When separated, every module within the metamachine can become an individual agent.” Kinda cool, kinda scary. Just saying.

Something Old:

• World’s first robot movie (1897). Believed lost for more than a century, the silent film Gugusse et l’Automate by George Méliès is the first known movie featuring a robot. At less than a minute long, this recently restored film features a boy automaton who becomes a man and then gets into a brutal fight with a clown. Short, simple, quirky. Perfect for today’s attention span.

Something Inspiring:

• AI robots for the elderly. Okay, I’m struggling with this one. But since I’m trying to be more optimistic about our cyborg future, I also see the potential. What if “social robots” could actually ease loneliness and increase wellbeing for the senior population, especially those with dementia? Provide levity and joy (as with these dancing robots in Barcelona)? What if AI robots could help support human caregivers? Would love to hear your thoughts.

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That’s it for now. Join me here next week for more.