A startup that hosts invite-only dinner parties is trying to make artificial intelligence feel practical for women in midlife. The Aged Intelligence Society was cofounded by Shoshana Berger, a former Wired editor who later led editorial work at companies including Notion and Ideo, and Nina Willdorf. Its events invite women to "solve midlife problems using frontier tools."
Willdorf argues that staying out of the conversation carries a cost. "This is the most formative technology of our generation, and it's here," she says. "If you choose to sit it out, you are doing yourself a disservice." The message has found an audience. The events have been oversubscribed from the start, and The New York Times covered the second dinner. Hundreds of women have asked to attend future gatherings, and the group's Substack passed 1,000 subscribers quickly, including a New Yorker writer and a small-town mayor. Women outside the Bay Area are now hosting their own meetups.
The idea began at a friend's birthday party. Berger and Willdorf, who both call themselves recovering magazine editors, were deep in a discussion of AI while other women at the party were not taking part. Berger says she then told Willdorf the pair might have a business on their hands. Neither is an AI expert, and both were nervous before the first event, but they had been testing the tools the way they once would have as reporters.
Each gathering follows set rules. Berger says guests are invited to leave their broader objections in an "ideological parking lot," since the goal is to build fluency, test tools and cut down on administrative work. She says the founders themselves have fears about AI, especially as creative professionals. Groups are kept to between eight and 12 people, and Willdorf says the best evenings mix backgrounds, such as nonprofit work, design, philanthropy, a chief executive and a parent at home with children.
Every guest brings a laptop and what the hosts call a midlife quandary. During 15 minutes of "library time," attendees work on their problem while the founders move around the room suggesting different tools or ways to improve a weak prompt. Willdorf says some guests do not want AI to write for them, and the hosts respond that they do not either, then show other uses.
Berger offers two examples. One attendee's mother had received an Alzheimer's diagnosis, and the daughter wanted to know whether her mother qualified for long-term care under an insurance plan. The insurer had sent a 300-page packet. The AI reviewed it, concluded that her mother qualified and offered to draft a letter arguing the case. In Berger's own case, early in her consulting career, she asked Claude to find the flaws in her proposal. It told her she was undercharging and advised her to double her rate. She did, she says, and the client did not blink.
Berger frames the pitch around economic value, noting that women have long been tied to domestic labor because the marketplace did not treat their work as valuable. She likens AI to the washing machine, a technology that returns hours to women's days. The founders say they practice this themselves while managing children heading to college, aging parents and a growing business. "We need the National Guard, but AI will help in the interim," Berger says.
She says the focus on women over 40 is deliberate. In her view, they have refined taste, know how to ask sharp questions and keep probing instead of accepting a first answer. She argues the technology suits people with experience and is not really built for the young. The interview, conducted by Zoë Schiffer, appeared in Wired's Model Behavior newsletter and was edited for length and clarity.
