⚠️ Musk wants a chip in your head

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🤯 WOW! Neuralink has put a chip in 21 human brains, and Elon Musk says more than 1,000 this year is “feasible.” Sam Altman paid $10,000 to join a wait list for a brain-preservation procedure its founder calls “100% fatal.” And when a New York Times host asked Peter Thiel if he’d prefer the human race to survive, Thiel paused.

Why it matters: The people building the next version of humanity are the same people who own this version’s plumbing. Stick around for the one question I’d ask all three.

📖 Read time: 2.5 minutes

Let’s talk about what’s inside your head, and who wants in.

Elon Musk wants a chip in your brain. Neuralink has implanted 21 people, and Musk says 1,000 more this year is doable. The device lets a paralyzed patient move a cursor by thinking. The end goal, Musk’s words: “symbiosis with artificial intelligence.”

Sam Altman, the ChatGPT guy, put down $10,000 for a spot on the wait list at Nectome, a startup that preserves your brain so it can be uploaded someday. The procedure, per the founder, is “100% fatal.” Altman’s take: “I assume my brain will be uploaded to the cloud.”

Peter Thiel, who bankrolled Facebook and Palantir, has spent decades funding the war on death itself. Last summer, a New York Times podcast host asked him, “You would prefer the human race to endure, right?” Thiel went quiet. Long enough that the host said, “You’re hesitating.” Eventually: yes.

There’s a name for this. Transhumanism. A real philosophy, not a movie plot, and it says the human body is version 1.0. Chips, uploads, engineered biology, then something post-human. Death is a bug. You’re the beta test.

I’m not telling you the science is fake. Neuralink gave a quadriplegic man his computer back. His name is Noland Arbaugh, he plays chess with his thoughts and I’ve interviewed him twice. Watch our first talk here. That’s a miracle. I’ve taken calls from listeners with ALS and spinal injuries. I want it for every one of them. If a chip hands one of them a keyboard, I’m all in.

That’s not the part that worries me.

Here’s what keeps me up at night. The men making the biggest bets on humanity 2.0 already own humanity 1.0’s plumbing. Your feed. The AI your kid uses to do homework. The cars. The data centers.

We handed them our attention and got feeds built to keep us scrolling. We handed them our data and got ads that follow us into the bathroom. Now their pitch is: Hand over the last private room you have. The one behind your eyes.

Nobody’s asking you to sign anything today. But the conversation is happening without you, in rooms you’ll never see, and the people in them have already decided how it ends.

So here’s my ask. Talk about it tonight, with your spouse and your kids, with the friend who thinks this is sci-fi. Ask the one question I’d put to all three tech titans: If your product works, who decides which humans get the upgrade?

Me? My brain stays put. It’s the only device I own that hasn’t pushed an update I didn’t ask for. Musk can keep his chip. I have one. It’s called a memory, and the storage is full.

🎯 Send this to someone who says “it’s just a chip” or “it’s just a chatbot,” and to anyone who’s ever asked where all this is going.

📱 Text-worthy: Neuralink: 21 brains chipped, Musk wants 1,000+ this year. Altman paid $10K to wait for a brain upload that’s “100% fatal.” Thiel got asked if humans should survive and paused. It’s called transhumanism. Kim’s take is worth the 2 minutes.

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🎣 Fishing gets phished: The catch of the day may be your identity. Last week, Fishbrain disclosed a breach in their app where 20 million anglers go to brag. Last month’s cyberattack exposed names, birthdays, emails, phone numbers and scrambled passwords. The company hasn’t revealed how many people are affected or how strongly passwords were protected. Change yours immediately, including any sites where you reused it. Might seem silly, but even personal fishing details can help scammers fool you, your friends or your bank. This ship just got reels.

🚕 Driver not included: If you’ve been reading about driverless robot cars like they’re some sort of sci-fi highlight reel, listen up. Waymo is expanding its ride reach in a bunch of new cities, bringing its total to 14: Phoenix, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Austin, Atlanta, Miami, Dallas, Houston, Orlando, San Antonio, Washington, D.C., Denver, San Diego and Tampa. International comes soon. Yep, the “Would you get in a car with no driver?” question is headed for your dinner table conversation. Fourteen cities, zero drivers, and still somebody in the back seat saying, “You could’ve taken the freeway.”

🤖 Feel like AI’s moving faster than you can keep up? You’re not alone. Most people are faking it, nodding along in meetings, pretending they get it. NetSuite Next changes that. It’s an AI-powered upgrade that lets you search your data, run reports and trigger workflows in plain English. No commands, no training, no tech degree. For the first time ever, you can try it free. If your revenue is at least in the seven figures, go to NetSuite.com/KIM and claim your free trial right now.* 

💸 Outbid by a desktop: First the good news. Nvidia’s latest workstation comes with a 3% new-customer discount. The bad news is it costs $92,887. Not a typo. The 88-pound GB300 workstation packs 748 GB of memory, so companies can run giant AI models in-house instead of on the cloud. For scale, a maxed-out Mac Studio is $12,299 with 256 GB. The same memory squeeze raising your laptop’s price is feeding beasts like this. Your PC isn’t slow. It’s just outbid.

You don’t need cable or a streaming subscription to catch the football season. All you need is a $25 antenna. Plus, we help Doug figure out why his arena’s live camera keeps freezing over Wi-Fi.

Listen on Komando.com →

🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Facebook keeps a list of every link you’ve tapped in the last 30 days. The article you never finished, the recipe you swore you’d make this weekend, all still there. In the mobile app, go to Settings & privacy > Link history. Bonus: Clear the list, and those old clicks stop steering your ads. 😏 (Yes, Facebook noticed the air fryer thing.)

📺 Tired of scrolling for something worth watching? Head to my YouTube channel! It’s packed with smart tips, real laughs and tech talk that actually matters. Click here and enjoy screen time that’s finally worth it.

Family wrecking your Netflix profile? Lock it. In a browser, click Account > Manage Profiles > your profile > Profile Lock. Verify your account, pick a four-digit PIN and hit Save PIN. Nobody can trash your recommendations, snoop your viewing history or finish a series without you. That last one is how trust issues begin.

🔐 Stop guessing your own passwords: You know the drill. You go to log in, can’t remember if it’s Fluffy123 or Fluffy1234, reset it for the fourth time this month and end up with a new password you’ll forget by Thursday. NordPass remembers every password for you, generates strong ones you’d never guess yourself and autofills them so you never have to think about it again. Get 55% off now (that’s $1.34/month).* 

❤️ Save their stories while you still can: Download the free StoryCorps app, sit down with Mom, Dad or Grandma and let it ask the questions: “How did you meet?” “What are you proudest of?” “What should the grandkids know?” Hit record and let them talk. Upload their recollections, and they’re preserved for good. One afternoon now. Voices you’ll revisit later. I’d give a lot for one more recording of my mom telling the story of how she met my dad.

📱 Your iPhone knows when you’re too close: Go to Settings > Screen Time > Screen Distance > Continue, then turn it on. Hold the screen closer than 12 inches for too long and your iPhone blocks it until you back off. Great for bedtime scrolling. Even better for the kid who reads with the phone 2 inches from their nose. 👃🏻

👀 Hide the apps nobody needs to see: On Pixel, go to Settings > Security & privacy > Private space > Set up. Add the apps and lock it. They vanish, files and notifications included, and reappear at the bottom of your app drawer only when you unlock. (Nosy kids, denied.) Samsung folks: Security and privacy > More security settings > Secure Folder.

LG launched AI-DOL, five virtual idols made to promote its new AI WashCombo. Aside from singing, rapping and dancing, each member represents an appliance feature like capacity, washing, drying or AI laundry sensing. They’re like the Avengers for features that make you go, “Oh, OK, that’s cool, I guess.”

They even released a funky electronic single called “I Wash,” because apparently, “Please Buy Our Washing Machine” didn’t test well.

Check it out here. My husband and I were arguing over whose turn it was to do the laundry. Finally, I threw in the towel. (Ahem, Barry didn’t laugh either.)

🎓 What you learned today: Tech billionaires bet on brain chips and brain uploads, hackers hooked Fishbrain, Waymo expands the reach of driverless cars, $92,887 AI workstations exist and LG’s got a virtual K-pop group selling washing machines. Your inner nitpicker might finally be profitable. Tomorrow, I’ll tell you about AI companies that need people to proofread chatbot answers, flag bad facts and rate responses.

⛪ The answer: C) 8 in 10. Yep, around 80% of churches livestream. The COVID-19 outbreak in 2020 was a big catalyst for congregations to put services online.

Six years later, the 20% of churches that don’t livestream are still waiting for the kid to find the HDMI cable.

🗂️ Your information has already been sold: Data brokers collected your name, address and phone number, selling them to anyone willing to pay. You never agreed to that. Scroll up to today’s Incogni article and run their free exposure scan. It takes under a minute and shows you how exposed you are. Get 60% off with my deal now.* 

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): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, Levoit, SOLPEX, LG Electronics

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