What happens in each class
One hour a week for eight weeks, in person. Bring your phone or tablet if you have one — if you don't, we'll have one for you to use.
How an hour is spent
Ten minutes on one idea, explained plainly. Twenty-five minutes doing it yourself, on your own device, with someone beside you. Fifteen minutes on what goes wrong and what it looks like when it does. Then questions, and we don't cut the last one short.
Every session stands on its own. Miss a week and you can still follow the next one. You take home one printed page each time, in large type.
The eight sessions
1. What it actually is
Artificial intelligence is not a robot, not a mind, and not a search engine. It is a machine that has read an enormous amount of writing and predicts what words usually come next. We'll show you why that makes it fluent, confident, and sometimes completely wrong at the same time — which is the single most important thing to understand about it.
2. Having a conversation with one
Hands on. You'll open a free assistant, type a question that matters to you, read the answer, and then ask a follow-up. Asking again when the answer isn't clear is the most useful skill there is and almost nobody teaches it. By the end of the hour you'll have done it once by yourself.
3. When it isn't a person
Cloned voices, invented faces, video of events that never occurred. We play real examples in the room so you hear a fake rather than hear about one. You will leave knowing what to listen for and, more usefully, knowing that listening isn't enough on its own.
4. The scams that use it
The grandchild in trouble. The bank that calls you. The romance that never video-calls. We go through the scripts, why they work on intelligent people, and the one rule that defeats all of them: hang up and call back on a number you looked up yourself.
5. Using it for something worth doing
Draft a letter to a landlord. Get a medical bill explained in plain words. Write down your questions before an appointment. Translate something. Scale a recipe for one person. The point of this week is that the thing is useful, not only dangerous.
6. What you give away when you type
Where your words go, what gets kept, and who can see it. What should never be typed into one of these: account numbers, your social security number, your full medical history. You can get real use out of it without handing over your life, and this is the hour where we draw that line.
7. Health questions
The most tempting use and the highest stakes. Where it genuinely helps — understanding a term a doctor used, preparing questions before an appointment — and where it must not be trusted: diagnosis, dosage, or whether to stop taking something. Also how to bring what it told you to your doctor without feeling foolish.
8. On your own, after this ends
Which free tools are likely to stay free. How to tell an app that uses AI from an app selling you AI. Where to ask for help locally when something changes — and it will change. The goal of this course is that you leave not needing us.
Cost, and what we ask for
There is no cost. There is nothing to buy, no membership, and no upgrade. We ask for your name so we know how many chairs to put out. We do not sell, rent, or share the list of people who attend with anyone, for any reason.
Dates and locations
The first group is being scheduled now. Write to hello@yourstickyguardian.org and we'll tell you when and where as soon as it is set. If you run a senior centre, library, or congregation and want a group hosted at your location, write to the same address.