A very techy Thursday to you, friend! Ever meet someone new only to forget their name 10 seconds later? Here’s my go-to trick: Repeat it right away, like replying, “Nice to meet you, Tom!” Then, sprinkle it into the conversation (e.g., “Tom, that’s so interesting” or “Wow, Tom, that’s so nice of you to say I’m smart and funny!”). But heads-up: I just read in the Wall Street Journal overusing someone’s name actually annoys them. Science says you need to repeat something five to seven times to move it from short-term to long-term memory. PSA: It works if you say their name in your head, too. 🤝

Help keep my email in your inbox: Big Tech’s algorithms always need a push, and you can make a difference. Simply reply to this email — say hello, send an emoji or type anything at all. This tells your email provider you actually want my email (instead of letting my newsletter disappear into the abyss of spam or promotions). Thanks in advance. I appreciate you! — Kim

It feels like forever ago. The first time I tried ChatGPT, I knew it would change everything. Back in 2022, images of people had seven fingers and every other thing a chatbot spit out was nonsense. I asked Google’s Gemini for a Bible verse and it told me no because the Bible was a copyrighted work. Yikes.

At first, few of us seriously considered AI taking over our jobs, rewriting history or even creating wars. But the tech kept advancing, and then came DeepSeek, an AI model from Communist China. Suddenly, the stakes felt even higher.

In the middle of all this, we have Elon Musk and Sam Altman fighting like two kids on the playground. Before you send me a note asking why I’m talking about politics … don’t.

This is what’s happening in the world and you need to know about it. If it comes up in conversation, you’ll have an educated opinion.

These two go way back

In 2015, Altman was a 30-year-old Stanford dropout who sold his first company for $43.3 million. Musk was already a billionaire, and his companies were churning out Teslas, rocket ships and the first Starlink satellites.

That year, Musk and Altman got together with nine other folks interested in artificial intelligence to start OpenAI. Three years later, in 2018, Musk put in an offer to take over OpenAI and it was rejected. He then left to start his own AI efforts at Tesla.

Fast-forward to 2022, when OpenAI changed the world with ChatGPT. Musk wasn’t about to be left behind; he launched his own AI, Grok, about a year later. It hasn’t gotten nearly the buzz ChatGPT has.

Last year, Musk sued Altman and OpenAI (more on that below). He withdrew the suit and then refiled it a few months later. They’ve been bickering for years.

Now it’s in the global spotlight

Earlier this week, Musk and a group of investors made a $97.4 billion bid to buy OpenAI.

Altman fired back on X, offering to buy Twitter (X’s former name) for $9.74 billion, knowing fully well Musk paid $44 billion for the platform, whose value has since plummeted. Ouch. Musk called him a “swindler” for that one.

Oh, and they kept going. Altman recently claimed Musk is “not a happy person.” Musk, in turn, told the Wall Street Journal he hopes OpenAI will return to being “a safety-focused force for good” instead of a corporate machine tied to Microsoft’s cloud computing services.

What are they really fighting about?

Musk’s argument boils down to three things:

1. Open-source AI: OpenAI was originally meant to be open-source, meaning freely available to the public. Instead, it’s taken $13 billion from Microsoft and is close to a $40 billion investment from SoftBank.
2. Safety concerns: Musk warns AI needs strict ethical guardrails. He believes OpenAI has drifted from that mission.
3. A force for good: In Musk’s view, OpenAI has gone from a nonprofit working for humanity to a big-money operation chasing profit. In 2024, for the record, OpenAI lost $5 billion.

The irony? Musk’s own AI, Grok, isn’t exactly an open-source, safety-first utopia, either. But when it comes to AI, neither man wants to lose.

The future of humanity or an ego battle?

At the heart of this feud is a bigger issue: Who controls AI, and where is it headed? AI is the greatest development since the Industrial Revolution. We’re getting a front-row seat to Silicon Valley’s latest drama. It’s entertaining, sure, but the future of AI is too important to be decided by billionaire grudges.

I hear from people every day who are afraid AI will take over everything and we’ll all end up like the people in “Wall‑E,” glued to screens, getting rounder by the day. Nope. AI will make us more productive in so many ways. I’ll explain exactly how another time.

The scarier part is where AI is headed

The real fight isn’t just Altman versus Musk. It’s about who holds the keys to the most powerful technology in human history.

We’re not talking about chatbots answering trivia. The next step is AGI (artificial general intelligence), and that’s when AI stops following commands and starts making its own decisions. Once that happens, there’s no turning back.

Altman and Musk both have the money, power and influence to shape that future. The question is will they use it to push humanity forward or just settle personal scores while the rest of us watch?

My idea: Let’s get the boys off the playground and into the principal's office so they can learn to play nice. My door is always open. Now, use the share icons below to pass on this know‑how.

These must-haves bring peace of mind to your family’s busy life.

• Protect little ones from sharp corners on furniture with a 12-pack of safety bumpers ($8).
• Tame your kid’s stuffed animals. A hammock (38% off) keeps them tidy and easy to grab.
• Ooh-la-la. a rotating jewelry box (20% off) with five drawers and 18 necklace hooks.
• Planning a trip? Order TSA-approved travel containers (23% off) now so you’re not panic-running to Target the night before your flight.
• Big sound, little earbuds, great price! Raycon’s earbuds (20% off) sound just like the fancy-schmancy pairs* but without the fancy-schmancy price tag!
• This compact travel document bag (20% off) has three layers of protection against fires and floods.

👜 Gen Z wishlist: What the heck do teens want? I’ve gotcha. Check out my list of stuff they’ll love.

🚨 Etsy sellers, watch out: A new scam starts with an email from "support" and a PDF invoice hosted on a legit domain: etsystatic⁠.⁠com. The goal is to get you to fill out fake identity verification requests on a cloned Etsy site. Official Etsy emails always end with @etsy⁠.⁠com.

He’s not that into you: A woman lost $375,000 to someone pretending to be “Virgin River” actor Martin Henderson. It all began when she left a comment on a fan page and “his agent” slid into her DMs to say Martin wanted to chat. The scammer used AI voicemails to lure her in, and she moved to New Zealand to be closer to him. The full story is wild.

🤖 Not the AI Zuck wanted: Harry Potter, Jesus Christ and Taylor Swift walk into a bar … in the form of Meta chatbots. Anyone can whip up a chatbot on Instagram, Messenger or WhatsApp. Meta’s system is supposed to flag religious figures, real-life people and trademarked fictional characters, but it’s easy to get around that with a typo or two.

🦉 Gone but not forgotten: RIP to Duolingo’s green owl mascot. In a very strange marketing stunt, the language-learning app put up a video that shows the little guy getting run over by a Cybertruck, shooting through the sky, past space and straight into hell. Now there's a reward for anyone who IDs the driver. Hey, it worked, because #RIPduo is trending.

You might need this: OpenAI’s fancy ChatGPT deep research agent pulls info from multiple sources but takes 30 minutes per search. It’s coming to Free and Plus tiers pretty soon, not just the $200-per-month option. The catch? Plus users get 10 prompts a month and Free users get two. I’ve mentioned before this is great to use with medical issues, business ideas and just about anything that needs a ton of research.

Fewer bells, fewer whistles: The average CPU performance is dropping for the first time in 20 years. It’s not because chips are getting weaker. Most folks don’t need a powerhouse processor to check emails and scroll social media, so the cheaper option works just fine.

🙏 Siri to the rescue: I love stories about tech saving lives. A 70-year-old in Florida had a stroke and couldn’t reach his landline. He spent 48 hours drifting in and out of consciousness, then he crawled into the living room. He yelled for Siri to call his daughter, who then contacted 911. He’s doing well! Most stroke patients need help within an hour. Talk about beating the odds.

🎓 Fake it till you make it: On TikTok, people of all ages are pretending they got into Harvard. The viral videos are funny, but it’s no joke that lawsuits have exposed donors and alumni kids getting special treatment. Speaking of … A Texan went to an Ivy League party on the East Coast. He walks up to a group of young women and asks, “Howdy, which school did y'all go to?” One of the women replied, “Yale.” The Texan asked again loudly, “WHICH SCHOOL DID Y'ALL GO TO?” (I saw you smile!)

Think what you type is safe? That’s not a guarantee anymore. Cybercriminals use hidden keyloggers to steal your logins, credit card details and private messages before you even hit “Enter.” I’ve got a way that stops them in their tracks. (Hackers really wish I’d stop telling you about this one.)

Enter EndpointLock, a powerful keystroke encryption tool that scrambles everything you type, making it gibberish to cybercriminals. Who needs it? Pretty much everyone:

✅ Business owners: Keep corporate emails and accounts locked down.

🎮 Gamers: Protect login credentials for high-value accounts.

💰 Online banking users: Shield financial info from prying eyes.

💻 Remote workers: Defend sensitive company data from hidden keyloggers.

No one ever regretted being too safe. When it comes to your digital life, you can’t afford to take chances. Try EndpointLock today before it’s too late.

🛑 It’s called “typosquatting”: There are jerks out there who buy up URLs that are just a typo away from the site you meant to visit. If you have a business, you’re a target. Have I Been Squatted? checks if someone is impersonating your website so you can protect your domain name. Ahem, this is why I own dozens of spellings of my site, Komando⁠.⁠com.

Stop, thief! If you make YouTube videos, check out Meta’s Video Seal tool. It puts an invisible watermark on your videos. Even if someone edits your video, it’ll still show up so you can prove it’s yours. It’s in demo mode, and you can add a message containing up to six characters.

📅 Who needs to go where? A shared Google Calendar is a smart way to keep track of everything you, your spouse and the kids have going on. Just click the + (plus icon) under Other calendars at the bottom left. Choose Create new calendar and fill in the details. Then, hit the three dots next to your new calendar and select Settings and sharing. Scroll until you see Share with specific people. Add your family’s email addresses and click Send when you’re all set.

Rude awakening: Ever fall asleep watching TV? If you have a Roku, press the asterisk button on your remote to open the menu. Scroll to Volume mode and use the arrows to change it. Leveling makes sounds even so things like ads won’t jolt you awake. Night mode makes quiet sounds like whispering louder and lowers more intense sounds, like shouting.

I did the work for you: Protecting yourself online doesn’t have to be complicated. I’ve handpicked the five best tools to safeguard your devices, data and identity.

🚲 Wheel-y safe: Registering your bike with your local police makes getting it back easier if it’s stolen. Just search online for “bicycle registration” plus your city name and look for an official website ending in ⁠.⁠gov. Pro tip: Wire locks are easy to cut, so go for a U‑lock instead. I found one (15% off) that has great reviews.

Actress Mandy Moore posted this on her Instagram account. Can you imagine? The Amazon driver probably took a pic of the delivery as proof, too. Dummy.

🩷 Because I care about you: Here’s a little trick if you definitely don’t want to see a certain person in your photo memories tomorrow, on Valentine’s Day.

• On iPhone, it’s called Breakup Mode. Open Photos and find a pic of the person. Click the three dots in the upper right corner > Feature This Person Less. Choose Feature This Person Less or Never Feature This Person. Tap Confirm.
• In Google Photos, go to Photo settings > Memories > Hide people or pets. Select the person to hide them for good. The pics aren’t deleted but just hidden.

A nice, clean slate. Speaking of which, someone told me you can clean pigs with vodka. Sounds like Absolut hogwash.

On that note, I’m outta here! Thanks for reading. Otherwise, I’d be writing this newsletter for myself, and that’d be sad! See you right back here tomorrow with the best tech newsletter in the USA! — Kim