Blog Chatbot Fun – My Next Chapter: A Retirement Journey

Some of you who know me personally know that I’m rather obsessed with generative AI and chatbots these days. I enjoy both coding and using them. . . . so I decided to make a chatbot for my retirement blog too 😅

Yes, I know: It’s completely useless! Something that no one would ever need! But it was still fun to code. And that’s another beauty of retirement: I can spend time on projects like this without feeling like I was insane for spending scarce non-working hours on it. And I do learn from them.

Now, I can ask my retirement blog chatbot: “What was that post Sharon did that had all the quotes about retirement? Please include a link if you can.” and it finds:

The post with all the quotes about retirement is titled “Quotes of note on retirement and aging,” published on July 11, 2024. You can read it here.

This is a little silly, I know. But I also spent some time this weekend working on something that I hope will be a bit more usefu: a chatbot that answers questions about my city’s government meetings by searching through posted agendas and minutes. Even if no one but me uses it, though, it’s helped me learn.

The pace of change in the generative AI field is absolutely staggering, as models become more capable (and affordable for hobby projects) monthly and tools to use them spring up weekly. In some ways, being retired has let me better keep up-to-date than I could have if I was working, since I have a lot more time to investigate what’s possible with my existing skill set and budget. Yet another benefit of retirement!