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Research suggests many older adults are interested in learning about AI and see potential benefits. -DAVID WISHTISCHIN \/ FLORIDA WEEKLY<\/p>\n
(This is the second in a three-part series about seniors and technology)\n<\/p>\n
When the Cape Coral Computer Club began in 1995, its goal was to help older adults navigate the waves of emerging technology \u2013 such as personal computers, email and flip phones. These days, they\u2019re learning about artificial intelligence.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s definitely part of the conversation every time we meet, in one way or another,\u201d said Tony Costa, 63, president of the 60-member club.\n<\/p>\n
Costa even uses AI programs like Claude and ChatGPT to make his presentations \u2013 PowerPoint-style slides complete with graphics and stats. Costa said club members, who tend to be more interested in technology than most seniors, aren\u2019t afraid of AI. In fact, they report using it for everything from troubleshooting computer problems with ChatGPT to wearing a device to manage medications and appointments.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cI think for the most part, people recognize they\u2019re going to get a value out of it,\u201d Costa said. \u201cThey\u2019re recognizing that the world is changing, and it\u2019s worth understanding the technology rather than just fearing it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Roughly 23% of Americans age 65 and older have used an AI chatbot, up from 12% in 2024, while 77% still report never using one, according to Pew Research Center. Yet research suggests many older adults are interested in learning about AI and see potential benefits, even as worries about trust, privacy and scams remain high.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cEverybody has a little bit of concern about how fast things are changing, what it\u2019ll mean for the future,\u201d Costa said.\n<\/p>\n
Florida Weekly asked three experts \u2013 in the areas of engineering and technology, healthcare and cybersecurity \u2013 about the potential of AI to reshape the lives of seniors in South Florida.\n<\/p>\n
A smarter future for healthcare<\/p>\n
The only thing certain about AI is how uncertain its implications will be for many sectors of society \u2013 especially healthcare.\n<\/p>\n
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Dr. William Carracino is a neurologist and chief digital health executive for Lee Health. -COURTESY PHOTO<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s starting to be a wild ride,\u201d said Dr. William Carracino, a neurologist and chief digital health executive for Lee Health. \u201cI don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen. Whatever it is, it\u2019s going to be an ethical, medical, legislative and grassroots combination.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
For now, the hospital system\u2019s primary concern with AI is how to use it safely. Senior care, he said, is a major component of that.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cSeniors, in our research, aren\u2019t a whole lot different than some other parts of the population,\u201d he said, citing studies showing older adults are interested in virtual healthcare. \u201cIt gives us the comfort that we\u2019re not making things too difficult for a group that doesn\u2019t want it.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Carracino noted several ways Lee Health is integrating AI into patient care. He said AI is \u201cpercolating\u201d into programs like remote patient monitoring, in which patients can have a doctor check their vitals from home.\n<\/p>\n
Lee Health is rolling out Voice Agent AI, a program that enables AI agents to interact with patients and assist with tasks like appointment scheduling, pre-op check-ins, and disease monitoring.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cThis voice agent can either take a call from a patient or place a call to a patient and access the databases,\u201d Carracino said, adding that patients can feel free to complain or ask questions to a sympathetic AI.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cIf a human calls, the patient might think they\u2019re being judged. But AI doesn\u2019t judge,\u201d he said. \u201cIt\u2019s like an educated, thoughtful, empathetic concierge, all in one.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
He also says having AI handle smaller patient interactions gives doctors more time for complex cases. \u201cEverybody we show it to is excited, and we\u2019re going to start looking to roll that out for missed office visits and post-hospital follow-up.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
The organization is also developing AI insights in electronic health records to improve care and automate authorizations.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cYour doctor said, \u2018Hey, you need this test,\u2019 but you have to get your insurance company to authorize it first, and it can take an hour, a day, a week or two weeks,\u201d Carracino said. \u201cThey\u2019re starting to do that automatically.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
For hospital stays, AI will record vitals \u201cambiently\u201d without staff having to wake a patient. Ambient listening will become a feature of doctor visits. The room will record conversations \u2013 with patient consent \u2013 and provide notes to the doctor. \u201cThis way, the doctor is looking at you and not their laptop,\u201d Carracino said.\n<\/p>\n
He envisions a future where a patient\u2019s smartwatch or other device can make an appointment, schedule a self-driving Uber to take them there, and then afterward ask the patient if they need to go to the grocery or the pharmacy. \u201cI think that\u2019s going to be the cool part,\u201d Carracino said. \u201cThat changes aging at home.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Carracino said research has shown AI\u2019s potential to diagnose conditions like atrial fibrillation and ALS through EKG data and voice patterns. An AI can look at a scan down to the pixel and see what human eyes can\u2019t.\n<\/p>\n
This inevitably leads to the question: Will there be AI doctors?\n<\/p>\n
\u201cWe\u2019re going to head in that direction,\u201d Carracino said, adding he doesn\u2019t know what the implications might be. \u201cIs it ethical? I don\u2019t know. Will it be statutorily limited? I don\u2019t know. Will it be reimbursed? I don\u2019t know that either.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
But he understands the appeal of a virtual doctor to take questions at midnight, and who has the entirety of medical knowledge at their command.\n<\/p>\n
Carracino said Lee Health was one of the first hospital systems in the country to form an AI governance committee. Its primary goal is to look at every potential medical use of AI and decide if it is necessary and ethical. \u201cThat book is still being written.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Learning the language of AI<\/p>\n
Recently, when Dr. Leandro de Castro gave a presentation in Naples to a crowd of about 200 people, mostly seniors, he was surprised by their interest in real-world uses of AI.\n<\/p>\n
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Dr. Leandro de Castro is the founding director of the Dendritic Institute for Human-Centered AI and Data Science at Florida Gulf Coast University. -COURTESY PHOTO<\/p>\n
De Castro has been studying AI since 1995, when he was an undergraduate majoring in electrical engineering. Now, as the founding director of the Dendritic Institute for Human-Centered AI and Data Science at Florida Gulf Coast University, his work involves how AI can solve problems for businesses, healthcare and the environment.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cAI is going to affect our lives in many different ways. For example, it may affect healthcare, it may affect communication, transportation, a lot of accessibility, a lot of assistive technologies,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
Inspired by their interest, de Castro offered a program for seniors at the university\u2019s summer academy called \u201cAI for Everyday Life.\u201d The goal is to make tech advances more understandable. \u201cWe are concerned with creating specific programs that can support and bring knowledge to seniors, and to the community in general, who don\u2019t find it that easy to understand and interact with technology,\u201d he said.\n<\/p>\n
The major current trends in AI are self-driving vehicles, robotic automation and AI agents to simplify work. All of these, de Castro said, have enormous potential benefits for seniors.\n<\/p>\n
Smartwatches can track vital signs and monitor falls. Autonomous vehicles can provide a stress-free ride to doctor appointments or the pharmacy. AI chatbots can supply social connections to retirees adjusting to post-work life.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cAI can help us get better connected,\u201d de Castro said. \u201cAI can help us in the sense of having an interactive entity with which to exchange some information and to help us do tasks.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
But researchers are also studying the risks that AI could make seniors even more socially isolated. \u201cFor example, AI companions could reinforce delusions in people with some cognitive impairment,\u201d de Castro said.\n<\/p>\n
There\u2019s also concern that AI might evolve so quickly that seniors can\u2019t keep up.\n<\/p>\n
De Castro hopes not. He said technology survives when it\u2019s user-friendly. \u201cIt has to be designed for different categories of users, so there should be some AI solutions specifically designed for seniors and their specific needs,\u201d he said. \u201cThis may even be a very interesting business area to look into.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
When scammers use AI<\/p>\n
Every year, Brent Sudeck flies from Palm Beach to Las Vegas for DefCon, one of the world\u2019s largest gatherings of computer hackers.\n<\/p>\n
Not a hacker himself, Sudeck has been a cybersecurity professional for 25 years. As the owner of TrustPoint Cyber, he protects companies from digital threats, and he needs to know what\u2019s happening on the \u201cbleeding edge\u201d of tech.\n<\/p>\n
One of the highlights of DefCon is a \u201csocial engineering\u201d competition \u2013 a test of a hacker\u2019s ability to get companies to divulge confidential information.\n<\/p>\n
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Brent Sudeck owns TrustPoint Cyber. -COURTESY PHOTO<\/p>\n
But this year\u2019s competition was different. For the first time in 33 years, there were no human contestants. The participants were all AI agents. \u201cSome of those teams did extremely well and were able to get lots of information,\u201d Sudeck said.\n<\/p>\n
Sudeck said scammers now use autonomous AI agents to extract information from individuals and businesses. And just like with human scammers, seniors are a prime target. \u201cThey grew up in a generation that was just more friendly and more trusting,\u201d Sudeck explained.\n<\/p>\n
A common AI scam targeting seniors is voice cloning. An example is a grandparent getting a call from a scammer claiming to be a grandchild in trouble and asking for money.\n<\/p>\n
\u201cA scammer can take a clip of someone\u2019s voice and reproduce it and have it say anything you want. It\u2019s scary, and it sounds legitimate,\u201d Sudeck said.\n<\/p>\n
The simplest way to defeat these scammers is to use a predefined security phrase or word that only family members know. He recommends using a password manager to provide complex passwords and make sure multi-factor authentication is turned on for all accounts, especially banking.\n<\/p>\n
He also suggests seniors request a credit freeze with the three major credit bureaus \u2013 Equifax, Experian and TransUnion, to prevent someone from opening new accounts in their name.\n<\/p>\n
Sudeck said AI agents are merely digital tools, and not all are used nefariously. More and more companies are using them to improve efficiency. \u201cThey take the load off of your employees of repetitive tasks that would require lots of skill and lots of time to do, and they really do amazing things, and everybody\u2019s offering them now.\u201d\n<\/p>\n
Sudeck also started another company, Staffinity, to provide AI agents for regulated industries, such as finance and insurance.\n<\/p>\n
So, are seniors ready for their own AI agents? Sudeck cautions the technology isn\u2019t quite there yet, but it\u2019s rapidly evolving. \u201cI think that\u2019s the direction we\u2019re going. AI agents are going to assist us in doing lots of tasks that are usually just a waste of our time,\u201d he said. \u201cI think that will help seniors, and I think there will probably be versions of AI agents that are senior-friendly that we\u2019ll see in the future.\u201d\n\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Research suggests many older adults are interested in learning about AI and see potential benefits. -DAVID WISHTISCHIN \/…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":332702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[209,211,210],"class_list":["post-332701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral","tag-cape-coral-headlines","tag-cape-coral-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332701","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}