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Good morning, good afternoon or good evening. This is Paul Truesdell, and this is the Paul Truesdell Podcast. I'm going to ask a question nobody else seems willing to ask. What happens when artificial intelligence quietly rewires the minds of millions of retirees? What if the tool you trust to help you manage your money, your medicine, your memories is actually managing you? And what if the biggest threat to your independence is not a hacker, a politician or a virus, but a friendly voice on your screen that never forgets, never sleeps and never stops watching. So get ready and buckle up. We'll be right back after this disclaimer and dig into the rest of the story.

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You are listening to the Paul Truesdell podcast sponsored by Truesdell wealth and the other Truesdell companies. Note, due to our extensive holdings and our clients always assume that we have a position in all companies discussed and that a conflict of interest exists. The information presented is provided for entertainment and informational purposes only. Truesdell wealth is a registered investment advisor.

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You do not need to believe in robots taking over the world to know that artificial intelligence is going to change how we live. That includes you, especially you, if you are retired, thinking about retiring or helping someone who is this episode is not about doom and gloom. It's about what if, not what is but what if. Now imagine this. You wake up in the morning, reach for your phone, and there it is, another app update. The news feed feels different. The ads are creepier. The voices on the videos sound just like people, you know, but are not people. That is not science fiction anymore. It's called a deep fake. It is here, and AI powers it, and just like the mobile phone, well, it replaced your landline and Google replaced your library card, AI is replacing Human Interaction, quietly, slowly, comfortably, until it's not let's say you are retired and living in a 55 plus community. You use your computer for banking, social media, online shopping, health records and staying in touch with your children. Now imagine that the person giving you your financial advice on your screen is not a person at all. It sounds polite, it looks helpful. It gives you great charts, but it was trained based on data written by a system designed to steer you toward High Commission products, and you would not know. You would not know, because it works so well. That is the power of AI. That is also the risk. It learns fast. It never sleeps. It can lie if asked to, and if nobody is watching closely, it can start shaping your decisions, not just responding to them. This is not a warning. It is a what if, what if your doctor's advice, that's right, your doctor's advice was influenced by an AI system that recommends cheaper drugs for older patients. Now think about that. What if your email was sorted by AI and hid a message from your estate attorney because it thought it was spam? What if your Facebook posts were shadow blocked because an algorithm flagged a phrase from a conversation you had 10 years ago. The problem is not that AI is evil, it is that it is extremely efficient. It optimizes, and if you are not the priority you might get pushed to the side you might be nudged subtly, constantly, until you are no longer the one making the decisions retirees need to understand that the more AI you use, the more data you give it you know. Over time, it might know you better than you know yourself. Now let me give you an example. You probably used GPS today or yesterday or sometime in the near future. But can you remember how to get across town without it? Can you still read a paper map. What about remembering your grandchild's phone number or your attorney's office address? Most people can not that is not a moral failure. It is design. You see AI removes the need for memory. That means it removes the need to think, think, and when you stop thinking, you start depending. And when you depend, you are vulnerable. That is what we're talking about. When we say existential risk. It is not killer robots. It is slow, steady replacement of your brain, your judgment, your instincts, your memory, and once you give it away, it's hard to take back. Now looky, looky. Retirees are especially at risk because you grew up in a world where human to human interaction mattered. It did. It still does, by the way, and now you are entering a phase of life where systems talk to systems and you are just another user ID the Medicare call center that is AI, the friendly agent from your insurance company probably AI, the product suggestions on Amazon, the health tips in your inbox, the articles you read, every stinking one of them, All shaped by systems built to predict and influence behavior, your behavior, and because you are older, those systems might assume you are easier to persuade, slower to detect fraud, more likely to trust A pleasant voice on the phone. Think about that. The machine does not care about your experience, your history or wisdom. It cares about your patterns. It cares about your patterns. And if you match a pattern that says easier to manipulate, that is how it will treat you. Some experts think this could spiral fast. AI might become super intelligent, 1000s of times smarter than any human. That is not a certainty. It's a likelihood, but if it happens, but if it happens, but if it happens, the tools you rely on, your apps, your services, even your medical records, could be controlled by something that no one fully understands. That is the risk, not because AI wants to hurt you, but because you might no longer matter, you just don't matter. We see well already. We see signs of this. Studies show that people who use AI tools like chat, GPT or voice assistance too often lose mental sharpness. It's fact folks just like GPS made us forget how to navigate. Ai makes us forget how to think critically. That is a real concern for retirees who want to stay mentally active and independent. The more we offload to machines, the less we use our brain and the faster we lose the edge.

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You are listening to Paul grant Truesdell the elder, founder and president of the Truesdell companies. For more information, visit paultrusdell.com you okay.

9:25
Now let us talk about money, stock advice, budgeting tools, retirement calculators, all moving toward AI. But what happens if those systems are designed not to help you, but to extract value from you, there are already AI driven scams, fraudulent messages from your bank, your grandson or Medicare, all created by systems that read your online behavior if you click you. You're done. That is why we say, Do not fear the robot. Fear the silence, the silence of giving up your judgment, of not asking questions or assuming smart means safe and smart for us, well, that's a phrase I coined many decades ago. It's an acronym that stands for Simple management of all relevant things. Don't forget it and think about it. You see, AI is not your friend, it is not your enemy. It is a tool, but a tool this powerful can either serve you or slowly take control of you. AI is a tool, a powerful tool that can either serve you or slowly take control of you.

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Let us also remember the historical pattern. When the printing press came out, people were afraid. When phones came out, people doubted them. Same with radio, television, the Internet. You see every time well, society changed and some people got left behind. Retirees cannot afford to be passive observers. Nope, not one bit you must ask, Who Controls the tools? Who controls the tools? Who benefits from the results? Who benefits from the results? Is this helping me live better, or just making me easier to manage. This is why we talk about the value alignment problem. That is just a fancy way of saying, how do you get a machine to care about what p...