Yesterday evening, Julie and I went to Frank's house to celebrate his birthday with our old boys and their spouses.
I decided to drive there using my memory. After all, I had been to Frank's house before. At my age, however, memory sometimes has its own ideas!
I lost my way.
No big deal. I turned to Google Maps for help. I entered the destination, followed the directions, and it brought us to the exact location.
Thank you, AI. 😊
When we arrived, the atmosphere was warm and friendly. It was not just a birthday dinner. It was another opportunity for old friends to sit together, eat, laugh, and continue conversations that have followed us through many years of friendship.
And what a dinner we had!
There was a rich menu with very generous portions. The food came from several Chinese restaurants in different districts, together with some homemade dishes.
We enjoyed sauce chicken, roasted piglet, abalone with noodles, deep fried chuk tsim油炸竹尖, stir-fried bean sprout with noodle 牙菜炒麵, beef tenderloin prepared Chinese-style, Fukien fried rice, steamed Kwai Lan, and more.
There was certainly no shortage of food.
And, of course, we could not celebrate a birthday without a birthday cake.
We bought a mango birthday cake from Panash Bakery. Mango cake is one of our favorites, so it was a perfect way to finish the meal.
Then the conversation turned to AI
After dinner, nobody seemed to be in a hurry to leave. We continued sitting together and talking.
Then AI became the subject.
We talked about Anthropic and Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, and the rapid development of AI. We discussed whether AI would cause job losses and what kind of subjects future students should study if AI continues to change the workplace.
These were not easy questions.
But I found it interesting that a group of seniors were seriously discussing them. AI was no longer something happening somewhere in the technology world.
It had become part of our own conversation.
Then the discussion became more fun.
We talked about what AI can do with our everyday photographs. Today, we can use AI to change a photograph by adding a completely different background or creating a new scene.
For example, someone could appear to be dining in a restaurant in the UK, with a beautiful lady added into the background. We can even change the style of her clothing—from a classic look to something much more fashionable or revealing.
Everyone thought this was amusing.
But we also recognized a more serious side.
A photograph can look surprisingly real after AI has changed it. Someone seeing the picture without knowing the story could easily misunderstand what actually happened.
That is one of the strange things about AI.
It can be useful, educational, creative and fun—but it also means we have to be careful about what we believe when we see something on a screen.
AI among the old boys
As I looked around the table, I found the whole conversation rather remarkable.
We were a group of seniors who had known each other for many years. We had spent the evening eating Chinese food, celebrating Frank's birthday and talking about our lives.
And now we were talking about Claude, ChatGPT, Gemini, jobs, education and AI-generated photographs.
Who would have imagined this when we were young?
For me, that was one of the nicest parts of Frank's birthday celebration.
The dinner gave us good food.
The mango cake gave us a sweet ending.
The friendship gave us good memories.
And AI gave us something new to talk about.
Perhaps getting older does not mean stopping learning.
Maybe it means continuing to be curious about whatever comes next.