Curiosity Is a Muscle: An 80-Year-Old, a Software Engineer, and What AI Is Asking of Us Now
I have had two conversations recently that I cannot stop thinking about.
The first was on a ten-minute bus ride through New York City. The second was at an event during my book tour for Resilience Is a Muscle. Both people were smart. Both were curious. Both were navigating the AI moment in completely different ways, and both helped me see something I want to put plainly to you here.
If you have been quietly avoiding AI, telling yourself you will get to it later, or assuming it does not really apply to your work, this is for you. Not to scare you. To invite you forward.
The 80-Year-Old on the Bus
She was sitting next to me on the bus, in her eighties, and noticed the book in my bag. We started talking about my work in AI training. Within a minute she was asking me about two software products for antivirus and data recovery on her computer and which one she actually needed.
That question opened a much bigger one. We talked about how chaotic the online world has become, and how that chaos puts seniors at real risk from bad actors. A regular Google search — the thing we have taught a whole generation to trust — can now lead you straight into a click that costs you. You search a simple question, you tap a link that looks legitimate, and suddenly you are somewhere you did not mean to be. And on top of that, you may not even get a good answer.
So I asked to see her phone. With her permission, I installed the ChatGPT app and we did a quick walkthrough together. I told her she did not need me to answer her question, she just needed a good AI tool to help her get a smart and safe response.
We spent the rest of that ride on three things: what a good prompt looks like, how that is different from a Google search, and how to verify the accuracy of an answer by asking the AI directly. And I gave her one piece of advice she laughed at and then took seriously: end your prompt with please explain this like I am your 85-year-old mother. The AI will adjust. The answer will be clearer. And you will trust it more because you actually understand it.
She got off the bus better equipped than she got on. Ten minutes.
The Software Engineer Who Was Hiding
A week later I met a young man in his twenties. Software engineer. Working in technology every day. I asked him how he was using AI in his role.
He told me he was trying to avoid it.
It surprised me at first, and then it did not. I have started to realize that a lot of people, including people working in tech, are quietly hoping AI is a phase. That if they keep their head down, it will pass, and they can go back to the work they have always done.
We had a real conversation about disruption. Specifically, the difference between being disrupted and disrupting yourself. One of those is something that happens to you. The other is something you choose. And the second one is almost always less painful than the first.
What These Two Conversations Have in Common
On the surface, an 80-year-old woman on a bus and a 25-year-old software engineer should not have much in common.
But they were standing on the same threshold. They were both unsure whether to step forward. And the cost of standing still was, in both cases, larger than they realized.
For her, it was safety. For him, it was career.
For most people I talk with, it is something in between. Time. Money. Confidence. The hours we are pouring into work that AI could be doing alongside us in a fraction of the time. The decisions we are making with less information than we could have. The opportunities we are missing because we are looking at them through a 2023 lens.
The Fears Are Not What They Were
Here is something I want you to hear clearly.
A lot of the concerns people had about AI six, twelve, eighteen months ago have already been addressed. Guardrails have improved. Tools have matured. The Wild West moment is giving way to something more usable, more transparent, and more accountable. There are still real questions, governance, ethics, accuracy, but those questions now have real frameworks and real answers attached to them.
What has not been addressed is the gap between people who are keeping pace and people who are not. That gap is widening every week.
If you are still working the way you worked in 2023, you are not playing it safe. You are paying a tax most people cannot see yet.
The Question I Want You to Sit With
How much time are you spending on your own curiosity each week?
Not consuming content. Not scrolling. Not hearing about AI from a friend or a podcast. Actual time, with your hands on a tool, asking it questions, trying it on your own work, comparing what it gives you against what you would have produced alone.
For most of us, the honest answer is: not enough. And the gap between curiosity and competence is shorter than people think. The 80-year-old on the bus closed it in ten minutes for her use case. You can close it for yours in a focused weekend.
What Recalibrating Forward Looks Like
I do not believe in bouncing back. I believe in recalibrating forward. That phrase matters here because AI is not a setback to recover from. It is a new terrain to map.
The people I see recalibrating forward share three habits:
They put their hands on the tools. They do not just read about AI; they use it on real work, every week.
They invest in structure. Curiosity without a path becomes overwhelm. A short, focused course will move you further in a week than three months of headlines.
They learn the guardrails alongside the use cases. They understand what AI is doing, where it can go wrong, and how to verify what it tells them.
Pathways to Get Started
We just launched our new Stellar-Learn™ platform with the full AI+ certification series — over 70 courses spanning AI fundamentals, role-specific tracks (sales, marketing, HR, finance, legal, customer service, education, policy), technical specializations (developer, data, cloud, security, architect, researcher, quantum, robotics), and executive leadership. Here is how I would think about a starting path depending on where you are.
If you are a curious everyday user (like the woman on the bus). Start with AI+ Everyone Fundamentals™, then move into AI+ Prompt Engineer L1™. You will leave able to use AI as a daily thinking partner, with the safety lens you need to use it well.
If you are in a business or functional role — sales, marketing, HR, finance, legal, customer service, education, or policy. Start with AI+ Foundation™ to build your baseline, then choose the role-specific track that fits your work: AI+ Sales™, AI+ Marketing™, AI+ HR™, AI+ Finance™, AI+ Legal Agent™, AI+ Customer Service™, AI+ Educator™, or AI+ Policy Maker™. You will leave with frameworks you can bring back to your team on Monday.
If you are a developer or technical professional. Start with AI+ Developer™, then move into AI+ Architect™ — or specialize with AI+ Data™, AI+ Cloud™, AI+ Security™ (L1–L3), AI+ Engineer™, AI+ Researcher™, AI+ Quantum™, AI+ Robotics™, AI+ Data Agent™, or AI+ Game Design Agent™ depending on your direction. You will leave faster, more capable, and more valuable to any team you work with.
If you lead a team or organization. Start with AI+ Executive Fundamentals™, then advance into AI+ Chief AI Officer™. You will leave with a plan, not just an awareness.
One Last Thing — and a Window That Closes June 15
To celebrate the platform launch, every course in the Stellar-Learn™ catalog is 50% off through June 15, 2026. The entire library. Over 70 courses. Half price.
If you have been waiting for a reason to invest the few hours a week your future self is asking for, this is the moment.
Browse the catalog. Pick the one course that answers a real question you have right now. Take it. Apply it to something real this week. Notice what changes.
That is how you recalibrate forward. Not by bracing for impact. By building the muscle.
Laurie Carey is the CEO and Chief AI Officer of Nebula Academy, founder of We Connect The Dots, and author of Resilience Is a Muscle. She speaks and writes at the intersection of AI strategy and human resilience.