Essay | Are Boomers Too Attached to AI? Readers Disagree.

Columnist Jamie Waters recently wrote about a family vacation that included an uninvited guest—Claude, Anthropic’s AI chatbot. Grappling with his parents’ frequent use of the tool, Waters wrote: “At one point I wondered if Mr. and Mrs. Waters might finally break Claude, causing the AI bubble to burst and the global economy to crater because the chatbot could not bring itself to answer one more effing question.” Readers debated his aversion to AI, and whether baby boomers—like Waters’s parents—are overusing it. Here, edited for space and clarity, are a selection of those comments.

These days, my dad’s first reaction to every question or problem is to ask Gemini, with no thought as to whether the AI would have the context necessary to answer the question. He also repeatedly posts AI slop and long LLM answers into our family chat without reading them. It makes me a little sad that the man I look up to and whose advice I once sought in all areas of my life is becoming a meat proxy. But what can you do? Parents always get a pass; they raised you. My parents grew up during the Cultural Revolution and gave me everything I had. They’ve fought and suffered enough. If my dad wants to turn off his brain more as he approaches his 70s, he’s got every right to do so. Wish he’d realize we want to hear his opinion more and AI less, though. —Phillip Huang

I am 72, a former business/technology manager who doesn’t always keep up (crypto…feh) and still loves spreadsheets. But, I do love Claude. The other AI products I’ve tried leave me cold, but I’ve used Claude almost daily over the last week. Planned a detailed trip to London. Researched the value of some copper pots on Facebook marketplace. Got a summary of the local mayoral candidates’ past politics. As far as the return to hard copy for reading, well, I do buy a paper to do crossword puzzles at the beach—or magazines when traveling—but I read books pretty exclusively on Kindle because it’s portable, backlit and I can alter the font size however I need. I grew up off the grid utterly and enjoy being able to pick and choose when I return to it. —Teri Wayne, 72

We took our daughter, son-in-law, and grandson on our annual vacation in June—to Washington, D.C. for five days. I told Claude our ages and interests along with what we considered must-visit sites. Claude was able to suggest how long we’d probably visit locations, suggest places not on our list. Given information about our taste in food, it also suggested nearby restaurants. Claude also scheduled all of this around avoiding too much time outside in the June heat during the middle of the day. Could I have done all of this myself? Yes, with the exception of knowing how long we’d likely spend at the museums. Instead, Claude did it with little effort and additional coaching on my part and put together a beautiful 15-page itinerary for our 5-day trip.—Alan Mah, 61

We have a neighbor, in her 70s as we are, who happily spends hours using ChatGPT to edit pictures of pets, children and whatever into strange, otherworldly pictures that she adamantly insists on sharing with just about anyone and everyone whether they want to see them or not. God help us…It’s the 2026 version of the 1960s couple that positively insisted on making everyone sit and watch a seemingly never-ending 35mm slideshow of their family vacation to Disneyworld…But worse.—Bill Schmaltz, 76

I am in my 70s and new to all this. Last night I was having difficulty with Wi-Fi access after a power outage. I engaged Gemini to help walk me through this issue. Turned out there were some unique circumstances with the router, mesh network, service provider and DirecTV. We spent quite a bit of time on it but figured it out—at least a temporary solution. I was impressed that Gemini suggested, once we had everything up and running, that I call it a night and enjoy watching the TV. We could work on the permanent fix later. I appreciated the advice and support. We ended the chat on friendly terms.—David Clark, 71

My 82-year old boomer parents are on their phones way more than my Gen Z kids. And no, it’s not because the phone pays attention to them and their kids don’t. We are a very close family. My parents have allowed the phone, which they lived 60 years without, to take over their minds a lot more than they would admit. They are addicted, they pick it up for everything, they ask it silly trivia questions, they have alerts going off constantly so they can “stay informed.” They are not on social media but they definitely doom scroll and call it staying informed.—Sara Stroll, 53