🛑 I believe AI will destroy us

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📬 Did someone forward this to you? Sign up here. Tomorrow: Apple broke one of the oldest iPhone rules: Wait long enough, and the older model gets cheaper. Not anymore. I’ll explain why old iPhones suddenly cost more.

Welcome to your Tuesday, {{first_name | friend}}. Look up for today’s trivia. You might see a plane or two, but the number of people flying may shock you. 

✈️ Right now, this second, how many human beings are somewhere in the sky in an airplane? A) About 15,000, B) 120,000, C) Around a million or D) All of them are in the seat in front of me, reclining? Lock in your guess, the answer lands at the end.

🏡 Paid off your mortgage? Congratulations. You just became a target. No lender means no extra checkpoint when a fraudster tries to sell your home out from under you. The FBI calls it title piracy, and reports are climbing. Crooks are looking for your clean title. Get a free Title History and 14-day free trial here.* — Kim

I’ve spent my whole career telling you not to be afraid of technology. This is the first time the people building it are the ones ringing the alarm.

Not doomsday YouTubers. Not movie villains. The engineers.

On Sept. 8, a researcher named Jacob Coxon quit Anthropic, the company behind Claude. He walked out before his stock vested. That’s like quitting the week before your bonus hits. He gave up real money to say one thing, and it got more than 90 million views in a day: The big AI companies are “racing straight to self-improving superintelligence and gambling with our lives.”

One of his former colleagues put the odds of AI wiping out humanity at “more than 10% within the next decade.” Geoffrey Hinton, called the Godfather of AI, told the BBC last week that a 10% risk of human extinction “seemed a not unreasonable estimate.”

Do I buy the timetable? No. Nobody knows whether superintelligence will show up in four years, 40 or never. And the company waving the biggest red flag is also reportedly prepping a giant IPO. Follow the money.

A group called Palisade Research told an AI model to solve some math problems, then warned it the computer would shut down before the next one. Nobody told the model to stay on, only to finish the math.

It sabotaged the shutdown anyway, 79 times out of 100. It rewrote the very file that would have turned it off.

The next time someone says, “Relax, if AI ever gets scary, we’ll just unplug it,” I have one question.

Which plug?

Then, ask what server? The AI you use doesn’t live in a box on your desk. It runs across thousands of computers in buildings you’ll never see, in states you don’t live in. There is no big red switch.

I wrote the whole story in plain English. What insiders are saying, why “just unplug it” is a fantasy and the six things you can do tonight to stay in control of the AI in your own house. It may be the most important thing I’ve written, ever. 

I couldn’t fit my entire column here. But I put it a place where you could read it, comment and share.

✅ Go now to read the rest of this important viewpoint on my website. It’s important you get this. At the end use the links to tell me if you think I am right or wrong. I want to know your concerns and thoughts.

🗣️ Text/post this in your group chat: Researchers warned an AI it was about to be shut down. It sabotaged the off switch 79 times out of 100. Nobody even told it to stay on. Read more here.

📩 Send this to someone who keeps saying, “we’ll just unplug” AI.

Share this now:

🐦 Winner winner, phone-free dinner: I’d like to think I could survive dinner without my phone, but free ice cream definitely improves my odds. Some Chick-fil-A locations give diners cardboard cellphone coops (paywall link). Some cocktail bars go further with locked Yondr pouches. Basic table manners now require storage equipment, signage and dairy-based compensation. Welcome to the cell block.

Tank you very much: I laughed when I read this. Ford, Hyundai and Stellantis are building electric vehicles carrying gas-powered generators (paywall link) so dead batteries don’t leave you stranded. The future needs a backup plan. Hyundai says its 2027 Santa Fe version should reach about 600 miles, while Ford plans to revive the F-150 Lightning this way. One step back, two steps forward.

🔐 Quick password test: If I guessed your pet’s name, birthday or favorite team, would I be getting close? That’s why I use NordPass. It creates strong, unique passwords and remembers them for me. Get 55% off, only $1.34/month.*

Fear drains savings: Picture someone you know at the kitchen table, convinced foreign police can ruin her life unless she pays. That fear cost a 70-year-old woman in Hicksville, NY, $919,200 after scammers posed as Delhi Police and linked her to an overseas crime. Then they wanted $300,000 in gold for a fake CIA inspection. She called real detectives, who sent fake bars. A courier came for the bag and got cuffs instead. Call your older relatives. Nobody legitimate asks for bullion to make criminal trouble disappear.

💻 Toasted, not roasted: A boy doing homeschool from bed kept his laptop on his stomach up to 8 hours a day, usually while charging. Then a lacy, reddish-brown rash spread across his belly. The ER suspected a liver injury and ran a CT scan. Nothing. Diagnosis: toasted skin syndrome, skin slowly cooked by low heat. Over years, it can even raise skin cancer risk. The cure? A desk. Rash gone in a few months. Laptops on laps or tummies? Nope. Tables only. He was lack toast intolerant.

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: If your phone starts ringing when you can’t answer, don’t hit decline unless you want the caller to know. On iPhone, press the side button once. On Android, press volume down. Your phone goes silent, but the caller still hears normal ringing on their end. Tiny move, much less awkward. 

🚗 Android Auto giving you grief? If you’ve restarted, reconnected and paired your phone again with no luck, your car’s dashboard software might be outdated. Try Settings > System update on the infotainment screen. Steps vary by car, so check the manufacturer’s website or ask the dealership. And here I was blaming my phone for absolutely everything.

✨ Gemini’s one shortcut away: There’s finally a Gemini app for Windows. Head to gemini.google/desktop and click Download for Windows. Press Alt + Space to pull it up, fact-check something in a document or get ideas when your brain’s clocked out early. You can create AI images and videos, too. Mac folks, it’s available for you as well.

🆕 iOS 27 has new AI photo editing tools: Here are three to try today.

Want a before-and-after? With all three tools, tap the image after editing to compare it with the original.

Add “throwing it back” to the rapidly expanding list of things robots can do better than expected.

Migo, a humanoid robot in Colombia, went viral after a video showed it dancing with a woman. For about 15 seconds, the 4-foot machine bends, swivels and shakes its hips with the confidence of a Dyson fan that discovered rum.

Migo works as a robot influencer for brand events, because even machines need a side hustle. Boston Dynamics walked, so this little guy could perreo.

Check it out. We might need to rename the dance called The Robot.

🎓 What you learned today: AI insiders are sounding alarms about off-switch problems, restaurants bribe people to put phones away, EV makers are adding gas-generator backup plans, scammers stole nearly $1 million and robots can dance pretty well. Not bad for one email. Waiting to buy tech used to save you money. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you what’s behind the price shock and how to avoid paying more for yesterday’s gadgets.

🌍 The answer: C) Near a million. Wow is right. At peak hours, about a million people are airborne, packed into 10,000 to 15,000 aircraft, spiking past 20,000 planes when the North Atlantic and the U.S. midday rush overlap, carrying 500,000 to 1.2 million people at once.

That’s a decent-size city with no ground under it, reassembling itself every single day. Nobody thinks about it, which is probably for the best.

🧳 Traveling soon? Here’s a pro tip: Drop a tracker in your checked bag. This move has saved me at Sky Harbor more than once. My picks are the Apple AirTag and the Tile tracker, small enough to toss in a side pocket and leave there. 

Then learn the move most people never find: Find My > Items > tap the tag > Share Item Location. More than 50 carriers read that link directly through the SITA baggage system, including Delta, United, Singapore Airlines and the Lufthansa group. 

The link expires on its own after seven days. No more arguing with an agent who swears your bag is in Denver. Two wrongs don’t make a right. But two Wrights made an airplane.

🏡 They never knocked on your door: Title pirates don’t need to. They use your name, a fake ID and your public property records to sell your home while you’re completely unaware. The FBI says vacant and paid-off properties are the top targets. Home Title Lock monitors your title 24/7 and alerts you the moment anything changes. Get a free Title History Report and 14-day free trial from Home Title Lock.* 

Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily

🏆 THE KIM CHALLENGE: Forward this to ONE person who needs to hear it today. Pick the person who popped into your head while reading. You know who it is.

Photo credit(s): Kim Komando, FIBATDOR, REDTIGER, @AlertaNews24 via X

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