🤖 Your doc is using AI without telling you

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Welcome to your tech smarts Thursday, {{first_name | friend}}. Sometimes real life makes cyberpunk look a little low-budget. A man was arrested for hacking government systems, and subtlety wasn’t in the skill set. No shadowy alter ego. No elite hacker mystique. His online name had the same energy as a burglar wearing a shirt that says “I love stealing.”

🥷 When investigators finally caught up with him, they probably didn’t need much detective work to figure out what he’d been up to. What was the Instagram handle of the man who recently pleaded guilty to hacking the government? A) MyMomThinksImGaming, B) ihackedthegovernment, C) FBIfanboy or D) topgovbreacher? Choose your fighter, the answer’s at the end. 

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Quick one before we get into it. Lots of readers have unlocked their free AI Prompt Hack Pack by referring three friends. If you have not grabbed your free copy yet, your referral link is at the bottom of this email. Send it to three people today. It takes two minutes, and the download is instant. — Kim

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⚡ TL;DR

📖 Read time: 2 minutes

My friend Anna told me her GP walked into the examining room and said, “My AI is listening in during our appointment today and recording everything.” Wait, what? 

Let me tell you what I told her.

At 1 in 3 U.S. physician practices, an AI scribe takes part in your visit. The tool records your entire conversation, transcribes it and drafts the note that ends up in your medical record. 

Nuance’s DAX Copilot, Abridge, Suki and Epic’s system are exploding in adoption. Many people don’t know it’s happening.

The AI listens to everything. Symptoms you describe, medications you mention, the stuff you blurt out because you’re nervous. It organizes all of it into a formal note your doctor reviews, edits (or not) and adds right to your chart. 

No more doctors hunched over typing. You get eye contact. Real conversations. Visits feel human again. 

Sounds great, right? Not so fast.

AI scribes omit details, miss context and sometimes invent things that were never said. The doctor is supposed to catch errors before anything goes into your record. Many don’t have time to check. 

So, you’ve got a permanent medical record written partly by a machine that could get pulled by insurance companies, employers running background checks or future doctors. Maybe even sold to data brokers.

HIPAA covers the record, not the recording. 

Your visit audio sits on a vendor’s servers. Some vendors retain it to improve models. Some delete it quickly. Some won’t say.

Federal law doesn’t require your written consent. State laws vary. But nothing stops you from asking. If the answer you get sounds like a shrug, that’s your answer. Good doctors welcome the question.

Your medical record is your record. Know who’s writing it. And just because. What kind of doctor is Dr. Pepper? A fizzician! (lol)

🗣️ TEXT / POST THIS STAT

At 1 in 3 doctor’s offices, an AI records your entire visit. Federal law doesn’t require them to tell you. Get the 4 questions you need to ask at www.GetKim.com.

📩 Send this to someone who has a doctor’s appointment coming up. Your mom. Your partner. Anyone who signed a HIPAA form last week assuming it still meant what it used to. Use those icons below.

(Starts at 1:01) Back in 1984, Chicago’s Aadam Jacobs started sneaking a Dictaphone he borrowed from his grandma into tiny clubs. Four decades later, he’s sitting on thousands of tapes, including Nirvana’s very first Chicago show two years before Nevermind. Volunteers are digitizing every last one for the Internet Archive, so you can listen for free. I talk to Aadam about his faves.

Click your favorite podcast player below to listen now or later:

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

⚡ Calling all sparkies: Meta launched LevelUp, a free four-week program to train total beginners as fiber techs for data centers. Know a teen or burned-out office worker who’d rather build the internet than sit through another meeting that should’ve been an email? Meta says it’s operating or building 27 U.S. data centers, tied to 30,000-plus construction jobs and 5,000-plus permanent roles.

Sleep tight: A tech company saying they built something too incredible for most people to touch makes me nervous. Anthropic said its new AI model, Mythos, is so good at finding hidden software flaws in banks, power grids, internet systems and government networks that access is limited (paywall link) to about 40 groups. Similar models may spread within 18 months. Britain’s the only foreign guest that got in. What a time to be alive, governments are treating AI model access like missile codes. 

📘 Stop feeling confused by AI: It’s moving fast. I see a lot of hype out there, but I only share resources that are actually worth your time. NetSuite’s free “Demystifying AI” guide is the real deal. It cuts through the noise to give you a clear breakdown of how to win. It’s especially useful if your business is already clearing seven figures. Download it for free.*

🌊 Ocean kill switch: Ever think about how much of modern life depends on stuff we can’t see, or is it just me? China tested a robotic submersible that can cut undersea cables 11,400 feet down. Those cables carry most of the world’s internet, banking and cloud traffic. Everything from money transfers to your kid’s Zoom call runs through those lines. China says it’s for maintenance. I mean, sure, but what if it starts snip snipping during conflict? Modern warfare could come down to a robot with a pair of scissors. 

Humans minus benefits: The pitch is unsettlingly clean. Replace a $100,000 worker with a $1,000 bot and call it innovation. Nearly 80,000 tech workers have reportedly lost jobs in 2026, as companies use AI agents that run 24/7 for about the cost of electricity. Customer service got hit first. Now engineers, designers and marketers are in the blast radius. That old promise that AI would handle the boring stuff is looking a lot more like corporate code for fewer humans, same workload, nicer margins. 

🍑 La-Z-Boy’s butt speakers: La-Z-Boy launched a recliner that blasts surround sound directly at your rear end. The chair includes built-in speakers positioned to deliver audio through your backside for “immersive entertainment experiences.” It’s like they took the bass literally. Movie explosions will never be the same when they’re rumbling through your tailbone. I guess you could say choosing this chair over regular furniture? It’s sound advice.

Gen Z was promised everything and got nothing in a world of social media and 24/7 tech. Why they’re the most anxious generation yet.

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

⚡️ 3-second tech genius: Sound only coming through one wireless earbud or AirPod? Put both back in the case for about 30 seconds. Even if they’re charged, that little break can help reset whatever nonsense they’re doing. Then open the case near your phone and reconnect. Still not working? Open your phone’s Bluetooth settings, unpair them and start from scratch.

Try this before booking: JetBlue got accused of “surveillance pricing” after a passenger said their ticket jumped by $230 before a funeral trip. Airlines allegedly adjust fares based on your data, like what you search, when you shop and how often you check back. Clear your browser cache and cookies, or book in Incognito mode before you buy. Using a VPN* helps too. Slightly unsettling that this is even a tip, but here we are.

🔎 Safari snitches as you type: Start typing in Safari’s address bar, and those suggestions pop up before you’re even done. That’s because Safari sends what you type to your search engine and Apple in real time, so it can serve up predictions. Hate that? Go to Settings > Apps > Safari and turn off Search Engine Suggestions and Safari Suggestions. You can type in peace without Safari trying to finish your thoughts.

TikTok can remix your face: TikTok has a new “AI remix” feature that may be turned on by default, letting your uploaded videos get used as source material for AI edits. That means strangers could use your clips for deepfakes, parodies or worse. There’s no universal off switch yet, but you can open each video, go to Privacy settings and turn off Allow AI to remix content at the bottom. Your face and voice do not need a side hustle in someone else’s post.

💬 WhatsApp wants your money: No joke, they’re testing a new “Plus” subscription for $3 a month. For now, it’s mostly cosmetic stuff like exclusive stickers, app themes, premium ringtones (lol) and the ability to pin up to 20 chats. This feels like a warm-up act. Cue paid ad removal. Want out sooner rather than later? Try Signal Messenger instead. It’s free, encrypted and won’t sell your grandkids’ photos.

You’ve seen sunsets. But not from a perspective 240,000 miles away.

Straight from the fabled “dark side of the moon,” astronaut Reid Wiseman casually filmed an “Earthset” from orbit, our planet dipping behind the moon like it was clocking out for the day. 

📸 Shot on an iPhone at 8x zoom, alongside pro Nikon gear snapping bracketed shots, the footage somehow matches what the human eye sees but from space.

Can’t say I’ve ever seen anything like this. Terrible day for the flat Earth community.

👉 Take a sec, turn up your volume for Reid’s play-by-play and watch this now. Incredible.

🔜 Tomorrow: Printers are cheap for a reason, and it’s not generosity. I’ll explain the ink scam, the firmware gotchas and why some printers are basically tiny extortion appliances sitting in your home office.

The answer is B) @ihackedthegovernment. Talk about truth in advertising! What a name to pick while actively hacking government systems. Somewhere, an investigator probably opened Instagram, blinked twice and said, “Well, that saves us time.”

I always chuckle when I watch a movie and hackers type “lasdkfjhehdfvjdkfhier” and announce, “I’m in!” In real life, password123 probably works. 

👙 Still in stock, still 37% off: I’ve been on ImproveLife GLP-1 Support for over half a year, and I stand behind it. Ready to ship right now. Get up to 37% off, free shipping and a free gift today.**

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

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Photo credit(s): ChatGPT, Viproud, Reid Wiseman

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