What happens when you turn your life into an AI assistant?

Gemini (archive audio): Key bodyweight exercises Squat Stand with feet shoulder-width apart, lowering your hips as if you were sitting in a chair, keeping your back straight and chest up. Go as low as comfortably possible.

Michael Calore: Lunges for each leg, three sets of 10, plank, three sets hold for 30 to 60 seconds, which is torture. Glute bridges, three sets of 15 reps. Then he talks about progressive overload and talks about rest days and all that stuff, which is great. And then I said, “Well, I don’t know how to do a lunge. Can you show me how to do a lunge?” He gave me a bunch of videos, five videos.

Lauren Goode: YouTube, supposedly?

Michael Calore: Yes, they were YouTube videos. Two of the links were exactly the same, but I watched all the videos and said, “Okay, I feel like I can do lunges now.” And I did the lunge and I didn’t hurt myself, and I felt a burn so I feel like this is pretty good.

Lauren Goode: That’s pretty great, actually.

Michael Calore: Yes. The only weird thing about it is that I did a Google search and found exactly the same information from two different places. Aside from the video, I don’t know where Jiminy got any of this information. I don’t even know where she got the recipes. Everything was just presented to me as, “That’s what Gemini says.”

Lauren Goode: No sources.

Michael Calore: No sources. I’ve been exploiting everything, and I haven’t seen any good sources.

Lauren Goode: Presumably, humans compiled these exercise plans or wrote down these recipes. This has been published, and I’m sorry, but tiny bits of your data are now being collected and added to some recipe, and you have no idea where they came from.

Michael Calore: Julian.

Lauren Goode: This is correct.

Zoe Schiffer: Well, will you continue with this? Will you continue to use it for this purpose, or does it feel like a solitary experience?

Michael Calore: Honestly, the workout regimen is pretty solid. I will continue to do so.

Lauren Goode: Nice – good.

Michael Calore: And as for recipes, I have so many cookbooks and so many years of experience preparing food myself that I never need to make this quinoa salad again, Lauren, unless you want me to make it and give you some. From him.

Lauren Goode: I’ve had other meals I’ve made, and I think maybe I’ll suggest it next time.

Zoe Schiffer: Very diplomatic.

Michael Calore: Okay, great.

Lauren Goode: But thank you, appreciate you.

Michael Calore: So I have to say that for me, as someone who understands myself and understands my own needs, it wasn’t really a huge help. The exercise was nice. I could have found this without Gemini 2.O, but if someone is new to this or has a lot of questions, or if someone is thinking about making these types of lifestyle changes, I’ve actually provided some Good tips.