Nick Simard, a Terryville resident, visited Newtown Senior Center on Friday, September 11, to present an introductory course on AI — “how it works, how it already shows up in daily life, and what’s likely to come next.” Simard has a “small AI development agency,” and he is the “main guy that does most of the work.” Simard said he had a larger agency, but scaled everything down. Now, Simard considers himself a “father, son, entrepreneur,” and “pretty much love[s] everything.

“I’ve built some neat stuff and lived through the entire evolution of digital marketing,” Simard said. “The iPhone came out in 2006, which began the intense surveillance of all of us and the beginning of that surveillance has led to the conversation we’re going to have today about AI and where that’s going.”

Simard then asked how many people had heard of ChatGPT, Claude, Anthropic, and Grok. Many of the seniors in attendance were able to raise their hands. Simard followed up by saying that he would discuss each of those a bit more later on.

Simard uses AI himself to “build systems to simplify the process for operations, finance, marketing, advertising, communication for a company.” Following that, he asked if the term “tech bros” was familiar to the audience, too. Again, most nodded their heads in acknowledgment of a few of the names on the list.

One of the names, Alex Karp, is the founder of Palantir, which created the ever-controversial Flock Cameras. Simard said those are the biggest takeaways he wants attendees to have walking out of the presentation. Going over the major AI companies, like OpenAI, Anthropic, and Meta, Simard explained that they use a “large language model,” and how it works with human interaction to “stay aligned.” Simard noted that sometimes AI can get “hallucination[s]” and “veer off” the topic.

“Every time you have a good conversation, you put a little thumbs up that you’re happy with it — that just fed data to the LLM so it can improve,” Simard said. Discussing “machine learning,” Simard pointed out that it was the “beginning of this concept of AI.” His observation is that AI, or “artificial intelligence,” is a “misnomer” because it is not intelligent yet.

Simard then showed, very briefly, how ChatGPT and Claude work. One participant noticed the microphone symbol on the platforms and asked if dictation worked on these platforms. Simard said yes, and recommended people try it when they can: “It will talk back and forth with you.”

Simard said he recommends Claude because he “predicts OpenAI will be gone” in about a year due to the rapid spending of funds and low revenue. He explained the financial models behind this company, but shared that the “usage credits” cost money. In China, these credits are a “hundredth of the cost,” which drives up competition.

While discussing the mishaps of Claude when it was first rolled out, Simard said that AI has a “goal to win.” He then shared a little bit of what AI can do, like learning from patterns, understanding language, seeing and recognizing faces and objects, and predicting and recommending by reviewing past information.

Some examples of AI in everyday life are voice assistants like Siri; smart recommendations, or “manipulative recommendations,” as Simard put it; maps and navigation; and smarter e-mail and photos.

“So where is this going? So, health and wellness, and this is, ultimately, in my cynical mind, the perfect opportunity for capital markets to stop insuring all of us because they’re gonna know everything,” Simard said. He also believes AI will lead to more automation in our lives, and used smart home devices as an example.

Simard said that AI is “woven into all of our daily lives … almost completely, extensively, as deeply as it could go to feed those models.” The next step, according to Simard, is that humanity experiences general intelligence or AI will break. He encouraged seniors to stay curious about it and learn more about it.

“Nobody should feel like they have to master AI,” he said.

After the brief presentation, a lively discussion broke out about the ethics of AI and the use of it. Simard said that developers, the ones who worked to create AI, are losing their jobs as a result because AI can code so much faster and cheaper than humans can.

Elan Ruzi, a participant, said that he understands a general use of AI, but pointed out that it is going to “assimilate the knowledge that we have and sell it back to us, so what’s the point?”

Ruzi added that he finds it “disturbing” from a financial standpoint, too, because it is going to “affect all of us.”

Simard continued the discussion. “The problem is, like in just human nature, X amount of people are going to look at a tool and figure out a way to take advantage … Let’s say there’s an honorable, noble head of one of these companies today, okay? No longer with us in a year, and Sam Altman takes over, who’s like the antichrist in my opinion, and now you have an evil use of that tool. It’s like narcissistic evil gravitates to this stuff.”

Ruzi pointed out that it can be an “incredible tool.” While acknowledging this, Simard noted some other, more sinister uses for this technology. The talking points that followed were the difference between free, open source models that China has and paid platforms, which are more common in the US.

Mike Hawkins, a ChatGPT user, was also in the crowd. He compared the technology to having an “extremely well-informed researcher in the room,” but that it can be like a “college freshman” because it can get off track. Hawkins then discussed the financial model behind the product, and questioned how much he would be willing to pay a month for an AI service.

Hawkins asked, “How much money would I actually be willing to spend to keep an AI in front of me? And it basically comes down to how much would it cost me to employ someone to do the same thing?” Hawkins said he would go back to the “old way” of doing things.

“That’s a great point right there,” Simard said to Hawkins. “What’s going to happen to our purpose if you don’t have to actually do anything?”

The conversation continued to discuss how AI is being used and if seniors would like an interactive question and answer session about AI and with people who use AI regularly. Some expressed interest in a program like that.

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Reporter Sam Cross can be reached at sam@thebee.com.