Artificial intelligence and old age

November 3, 2026

Dell Franklin walking his dog on the beach

By DELL FRANKLIN

Editor’s Note: The following series, “Life in Radically Gentrifying Cayucos by the Sea,” to be posted biweekly includes the notes, thoughts, and opinions of an original American voice: author Dell Franklin. 

Franklin’s latest book – “Hitchhiking, A Destiny” – is currently on Amazon.

I was talking to a friend who is older than me, which means he is over 83, and has gone through a year of chemo and has two new knees and two new shoulders and and one new hip (I have one new hip) and wobbles and scuffles when he walks but pushes on, working out with weights and various cardio. He still golfs which he finds very frustrating and tries to eat right but likes his booze and suffers acid-burning pain in his feet and needs to take various meds.

He claims if he ever gets cancer again he will refuse to take chemo, though he admits new cures are on the horizon because of advancement in medical science spurred on by artificial intelligence that will allow many humans in our world to live as long as 120 and maybe 150 years!

I cringe at the thought. Have you ever noticed some of these decrepit fossils creaking around in the supermarkets? Clogging up lanes. Squinting hopelessly at certain items in aisles while checking lists (That’s me!). Holding up the checkout lanes by fumbling with items and credit cards.

Following them in your car when they’re driving 20 miles an hour in a 35 zone and you can hardly see their shrunken heads over the seats. The list goes on and on.

Are they enjoying life? What do they do with themselves? When I got on the phone with my friend whom I’ve known since 1959, I asked him how he was doing.

“It’s been kind of boring,” he admitted. “There’s less and less I can do. Even doing small things around the house are becoming impossible. I always enjoyed that.”

“Finding it hard to stuff something into the emptiness?” I asked.

“That’s a good way to put it.”

“I read a lot,” I told him.

“Yeh, I read a lot, but I can only read so much.”

“Yeh, I can only read so much and my eyes hurt, because my sight sucks, and if I read in the afternoon I fall asleep and wake up in a fucking stupor.”

“If it wasn’t for TV, at night, I don’t know what I’d do,” he admitted. “I don’t watch it during the day, but thank God there’s some good stuff on all these new channels that I can stream. And sports, of course.”

“Something to look forward to.”

“Exactly.”

I sighed. “I seldom go to the movies anymore because I no longer have a woman and I hate driving at night and by evening it’s hard to get off my ass unless I’m having a mental emergency and need to immediately walk down to Schooner’s and get drunk and hope there’s somebody to talk to.”

“I don’t even have that. But I drink every night. I’m trying to cut back.”

“I don’t drink every night,” I said, as I poured myself vodka on the rocks and took it outside and sat down on a lounge chair on my deck in the balmy darkness. “I’m outside,”  I said. “It’s warm out. I need to move around a bit or I stiffen up and when I do get up I’m fucking dizzy and need to be careful or I’ll plow into something and hurt myself.”

“I know the feeling.”

“Can you imagine living to a hundred and twenty, and it’s been almost sixty years since you retired, and you and your wife are both still living off all your money, and there’s nothing you can do with it, you’re too creaky and feeble to go anywhere, to travel, you can hardly see or move and need help and society has come to the point where AI has taken over almost all jobs and functions and there’s hardly anything for people to do but wander around gazing at impossibly sophisticated cell phones, and those who can afford it are out-living the peons, you can’t drink because it’ll definitely kill you, you can’t eat bacon or cheeseburgers because that’ll kill you, you’re probably on fucking pablum and diapers, you can hardly wipe your ass…”

“…Stop it! Stop it! I’m having a drink right now. I have at least two every night before I go to bed, or I can’t sleep, and when I wake up a couple hours later with the pain in my fucking feet, I have to take a pill and it takes around forty five minutes to check in so I might as well have another drink…”

I began telling him how my right shoulder was going out on me, which meant I would soon have to give up tennis, just like I gave up basketball and missed my old hoop cohorts and would miss my tennis partners and would have to be satisfied with solitary walking and solitary stationary bike riding, though I was thankful to be able to at least do those things.

Though, if I managed to live to a hundred and maybe a hundred and twenty I probably wouldn’t be able to do anything but sit like a sightless thoughtless zombie with all new joints and no friends and nobody wanting to talk to or deal with me because I can’t drink anymore as I drool on myself and take the appropriate pills…

“…I know where you’re coming from, my friend,” said my oldest best friend. “Enjoy your vodka.”