Grandchildren, homework, and where to draw the line
My daughter handed me a rule when I started watching the grandkids after school, a good one, and the schools have since confirmed it. The machine may explain, it may never produce. My grandson, age thirteen, has a history essay due, and the modern temptation is to have a program write it, which the schools can now detect and which teaches nothing except shortcuts. So the house rule, typed and taped to the refrigerator by my daughter, runs like this. You can ask it to explain anything you do not understand. You can ask it to quiz you. You can ask it to find the argument in your own draft and tell you where it is weak. You may not ask it to write the sentence. Watching him work within the rule, I have come to think it is the right one for the adults too, which is a humbling thing for a grandmother to admit. He asks the machine to explain the Missouri Compromise three different ways until one lands, and then he writes it in his own lumpy seventh grade prose, which is his and no machine's. For the little one, age seven, we use it for the quiz game, where it invents trivia questions about her favorite sharks, and she shrieks, and the machine is endlessly game. The line in the sand is the point. Learning is the thing being protected, and the machine is the tutor, never the ghostwriter. If a thirteen year old can hold that line while his essay is due Friday, the least the rest of us can do is hold it with our letters to the editor.
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AI, in plain English three small answers, no jargon
Where AI is heading: assistants that act
The clear trend is from chatbots that answer to assistants that do: book, file, buy, and follow up on your behalf. Trust in them will grow slowly, and honestly, it should.
Why AI makes things up
A hallucination is the AI filling a gap with fluent invention. It is not lying; it is predicting plausible words. The defense is asking for sources, then actually checking them.
Chatbots vs. agents
A chatbot answers; an agent acts, planning steps and using tools before reporting back. Agents are the newer, clunkier technology: powerful when they work, supervised when it matters.
The Desmond-Fish Public Library opened in November 1980, founded by novelist Alice Curtis Desmond and her husband, former Congressman Hamilton Fish III, who chose Garrison — his birthplace — because the hamlet had no library of its own. Today it serves Garrison and Philipstown as a member of the Mid-Hudson Library System, with a tech center, reading and pollinator gardens, and programs from pre-school through older adults. An endowment from Alice Curtis Desmond still provides roughly 42% of its annual budget.
From the library's own site, source.
Visit or contact
- Address: 472 Route 403, Garrison, NY 10524
- Phone: 845-424-3020
- Website and hours: desmondfishlibrary.org/
- System: Mid-Hudson Library System
Hours change with the season, so we link the library's own site instead of copying a schedule that could go stale.
Get an AI class here
Path one: ask the library directly. Patron requests carry real weight with program coordinators, and their website and phone number are linked above.
Path two: tell us you want a class at Alice Curtis Desmond and Hamilton Fish Library and we will count you in when we schedule one there.
What you’ll find there
- Museum passes
- Meeting and study rooms
- Public computers
- Library of Things
- Local history and genealogy
- E-books, audiobooks (Libby/OverDrive)
- Book sales
- Kids and family programs
Collected from the library’s own website. Availability changes — confirm details on their site.
Two free AI classes for Alice Curtis Desmond and Hamilton Fish Library
Live, beginner-friendly, 90 minutes each. Your first two classes cost $0, including the presenter fee — bring us in, see how your community responds, then decide.
For library staff
Reply “send dates” to our email and we’ll send available times within a day. Or start here:
Email us for available dates →
No presenter fee. No contract. You provide the room, chairs and wifi — we bring everything else.
How booking works · browse all six class topics (no email needed)
I’m a patron of this library
Want a class here? Leave your email and we’ll tell you if one gets scheduled at Alice Curtis Desmond and Hamilton Fish Library — and pass the count to their program coordinator.
One email only when scheduling news exists. Or call the library and say you’d attend — patron requests carry real weight.
Heard about us from a neighbor? Forward this page to whoever books programs at your library.
Is this a sales pitch to our patrons?
No. Nothing is sold or pitched in the room, and patrons never pay to attend. Take-home materials are free.
What’s the catch on “two free classes”?
None, and here is the model: your first two classes cost you nothing, we collect attendance and feedback, and the next library books us because yours proved it works. Repeat classes after that are a modest honorarium sized to your budget.
What do we need to provide?
A room, chairs, and wifi. We bring the projector, adapters, a backup hotspot, printed handouts — every attendee leaves with a printed AI cheat sheet.
Library AI Courses teaches free, live, 90 minute AI classes at public libraries across the region. A listing here is a directory entry, not an endorsement by the library. Classes get scheduled when a library books one or enough patrons ask. Library staff: how booking works →