It was a pleasantly warm evening in San Francisco, perfect for Nina Willdorf to don her signature “A.I. dress”—a silky green, short-sleeved Lacoste number.
“I found this thanks to Gemini!” she announced, greeted by admiring comments from her arriving guests. She recounted spotting a woman wearing it in Vienna months ago, thinking it was unobtainable. But a quick photo and a query to Google’s A.I. chatbot, Gemini, led her to a secondhand listing. “It gave me the link, and I bought it,” she shared, pleased with her $150 find.
Such an outfit was perfectly suited for the evening, as Ms. Willdorf was co-hosting with Shoshana Berger. These two former editors, now marketing and communication consultants, had formed a bond last spring over a shared secret: despite being married, they both considered Claude, Anthropic’s A.I. chatbot, their virtual “boyfriend.”
While many of their acquaintances remained skeptical of artificial intelligence, Ms. Willdorf and Ms. Berger had embraced it wholeheartedly and were eager to share their enthusiasm. They were still brainstorming a catchy name for their new monthly series, finding “Midlife Lady A.I. Dinners” a bit unwieldy.
[Image: Hillary Tyree, Amanda Hughen, Shoshana Berger, and Kelly Duane de la Vega engage in conversation at a modern “Tupperware party” focused on refining A.I. prompts.]
Indeed, this was the essence of their invite-only “prompt parties”: women of a certain age convening in a cozy home setting, enjoying fine cheese and sparkling wine, to discuss how chatbots like ChatGPT could benefit them, both in their careers and personal lives.
The aim was mutual learning and to encourage even tech-averse women to become confident conversationalists with artificial intelligence. More precisely, it was an opportunity for them to hone their “prompting” skills.
The dinner table, elegantly prepared for nine, featured a menu detailing the evening’s flow: appetizers for introductions, a main course of midlife quandaries, and chocolate peanut butter cups for dessert. All attendees were over 40, ranging from A.I. enthusiasts to skeptics. They were connected through Ms. Willdorf or Ms. Berger but mostly strangers to each other. (As a tech-skeptical friend of Ms. Willdorf’s, I was invited and attended as a journalist.)
The concept blended the familiar intimacy of a Tupperware party with practical emotional and technical support, accompanied by gourmet snacks like Fishwife sardines, rosé, and plant-based dip. When some dip accidentally splattered on Ms. Berger’s blouse, she started dabbing it with water until Hillary Tyree, a venture capitalist, offered a modern solution: “Just scan the tag with your iPhone! It’ll tell you how to treat the fabric.”
Ms. Willdorf began the evening with a brief address. “We might call this our A.I. Tupperware Party, but it’s not truly about the containers or even the technology itself,” she explained. “It’s about how we use it, collectively.”
[Image: Tiffany Wheat, a luxury sales consultant, utilized A.I. to author a book on dating.][Image: Nina Willdorf, co-host of the A.I. party.]
A significant distinction from traditional Tupperware gatherings of yesteryear: this evening, nothing was being sold—unless one considers the sharing of personal experiences as a form of exchange.
“Even within our San Francisco tech hub, we can sometimes feel a step behind,” Ms. Willdorf admitted. She acknowledged the undeniable risks of A.I., mentioning job displacement, environmental impact, and the spread of misinformation. “But it’s undeniably here, and it’s advancing rapidly. We have a choice: engage with it or be left behind,” she asserted. “Personally, I find A.I. fascinating.”
Ms. Berger then invited everyone to share their most successful chatbot prompt. Her own triumph involved uploading a business proposal to Claude, which advised, “You’re not charging enough money.” When she asked for a suggested rate, Claude simply replied, “Double your rate.” She followed the advice, and to her delight, “The client didn’t even hesitate.” The table erupted in cheers.
Tiffany Wheat, a luxury sales consultant, expressed her fatigue with online dating. Being interested in astrology, she conceived of a book: “How to Date Me.” However, she wasn’t keen on the actual writing. “So, I consulted my French lover, le Chat GPT,” she quipped with an exaggerated accent. Within a day, her survival guide for dating Virgos was ready and available for purchase.
Rimma Boshernistan, a strategist, revealed she had sought A.I.’s counsel during a period of personal dissatisfaction. Through extensive conversations, the chatbot helped her come to the profound realization that she needed to end her marriage. “My therapist had hinted at similar things, but I wasn’t truly internalizing it,” she explained. “Then A.I. offered such a clear, empathetic perspective… it made everything so evident.”
Dr. Ono Nseyo, an OB-GYN, helped herself to hummus, confessing that she, much like the medical profession, had been slow to adopt new technologies. Yet, since her clinic implemented an A.I. scribe, she feels she’s become a more attentive and effective doctor. “With the A.I. handling all the note-taking, I can fully engage with my patients!” she enthused.
[Image: Rimma Boshernistan (left), who used A.I. for personal challenges, and Dr. Ono Nseyo (right), a physician who found A.I. enhanced her patient interactions.]
While Ms. Tyree routinely incorporates A.I. into her professional life, her proudest prompting achievement involved generating a flyer for her children’s school Halloween fundraiser. From an Uber, she instructed Nano Banana, an A.I. image generator: “Make it fun, not cheesy, appealing to kids without being lame.”
“It turned out perfectly,” she chuckled, then confessed to a minor flaw. “If you zoom in, it actually says: Burchase tickets.”
Not all attendees shared the same initial enthusiasm. “I never even wanted a cellphone,” Kelly Duane de la Vega admitted, gesturing with the device in her hand. “I’d love to resist A.I., but it feels like a pointless endeavor.” The documentary filmmaker had initially used A.I. reluctantly for a temporary narrator’s voice, but not in her personal life. That changed when her son faced a complex landlord issue. “I thought I’d lose a whole Saturday drafting that letter,” she recalled. Instead, she fed all the details into ChatGPT, and it was done in two hours. “I sent it to a lawyer friend, who responded, ‘Wow, are you sure you’re not a lawyer yourself?’”
These anecdotes of A.I. success set the stage for the next activity: prompting practice, which they dubbed “the art of asking the right questions.” The women consulted the “midlife quandary” section of their menus, opened their laptops, and refreshed their wine glasses.
“Take ten minutes,” Ms. Berger directed, as the room filled with the gentle click-clack of keyboards. “If your chatbot isn’t quite hitting the mark, give it a nudge,” Ms. Willdorf advised, moving among the participants.
“I’d love to feed my daughter’s college personal statement into it,” Amanda Hughen, a visual artist, admitted. “That’s probably not the best idea,” Ms. Willdorf cautioned, emphasizing that A.I. shouldn’t be used for revision. Instead, she suggested prompts like, “‘What are five strengths?’ or ‘How could this be enhanced?’” Undeterred, Ms. Hughen decided to ask her chatbot for sources of mud and river water for a sculpture, joking, “I’m taking it all the way back to the Stone Age.”
[Image: Shoshana Berger (left) and Hillary Tyree. Berger noted that women have historically been excluded from tech conversations, making events like this crucial for discussing A.I.]
Ms. Wheat, the author of the A.I.-generated Virgo dating guide, continued her exploration. “I asked, ‘Why am I not married yet?’” she recounted. “And the chatbot’s response was essentially, ‘Girl, we’ve been through this extensively!’”
Setting down two pitchers of fresh mint tea, Ms. Berger shared her own prompt. “I asked Claude, ‘Have you seen my calendar?’” (Claude, of course, had not.) “I then explained, ‘My husband feels we’re overscheduled.’ I asked for talking points, and Claude’s emphatic reply was, ‘Your husband is right.’”
“You just saved yourself a small fortune in therapy!” Ms. Hughen exclaimed, impressed.
[Image: Attendees engaged in a lively discussion at the A.I. prompt party.]
Ms. Berger, however, didn’t shy away from addressing the potential downsides of human dependence on artificial intelligence.
“We’re all familiar with the news stories highlighting individuals relying on A.I. in isolation,” she observed. “The narratives of a growing loneliness epidemic, particularly as we get older.”
This concern largely fueled the creation of these gatherings. (They eventually settled on a name without Claude’s input: Aged Intelligence.)
“Our dining room has become the A.I. ‘war room,’” Ms. Berger declared. “A place where we can gather amidst an abundance of cheese and collaboratively tackle the challenges of midlife.”
As the hour grew late (around 10 p.m.), laptops were closed. Ms. Willdorf opened a kitchen drawer, revealing it full of Tupperware containers. She then carefully transferred the remaining dip into one, sealing it with a familiar, gentle burp.