In partnership with
💦 Welcome to AI Thinking Thursday, friend. This is the fun one. No meetings, no jargon, just the AI stuff worth trying this weekend. Come on in and make a Splash. Did someone forward this to you? Sign up here, it’s free.
HERE’S WHAT’S IN THIS ISSUE:
🐾 Dress your pet in four costumes, no wrestling.
🍬 Let AI sort the Halloween candy haul.
💬 Is your chatbot conscious or simply a good listener?
😏 Bacon and eggs floating in cola. Real or AI?
🦆 The robot duck everyone suddenly wants.
But first, some trivia. Halloween is Saturday, so let’s talk about what really scares Americans. Every year, Chapman University asks more than 1,000 of us to rate dozens of fears, big and small. This year, AI had its moment.
👻 What share of Americans say they’re afraid AI will hurt the economy? A) 1 in 10, B) 1 in 4, C) About half or D) Just the guy whose smart speaker started laughing at 3 a.m.? The answer is lurking at the end.
🌙 The clocks fall back Nov. 1, but your body’s settings are more complex: Turning back the clocks can throw off your natural sleep rhythm. I take ImproveLife Sleep every night to help me relax and wake up refreshed. No melatonin, no sugar, no grogginess.** Save up to 30%, plus free shipping.
✅ Quick favor: Tell me the worst costume your pet ever put up with. Photos welcome. I’ll look at every one. — Kim
🎨 TRY THIS TONIGHT
🐝 No costume required
Image: ChatGPT/Kim Komando
Last Halloween, I paid $25 for a bumblebee costume. It took 20 minutes to get Bella into it, she wore it for exactly one photo and the look she gave me said, “I will remember this.” This year, you can dress your pet in any costume for free, with no wrestling, no shipping and no dirty looks.
🐾 The pet costume closet
Snap a clear photo of your dog or cat looking at the camera. Open ChatGPT or Gemini and paste this:
Here’s a photo of my [dog/cat], [name]. Make four Halloween portraits of them dressed as [a vampire, a cowboy, a pumpkin and a 1920s gangster]. Keep my pet exactly as they are: same face, eye color, markings, ear shape, fur and body size. Fit each costume to my pet’s real shape, put them in a setting that matches the costume and make it look like a real photo, not a cartoon.
Swap in whatever costumes you like: a witch, a hot dog, a sheriff, a ghost. If something looks off, tell it, “Make her ears floppier” or “Ditch the hat.”
Bonus points when you post all four and let your friends vote. Pawsitively spooky. What’s the least amount of costume needed to look like a bear? Bear Minimum.
🩷 Love this idea? Post this in your group chat: My dog went as a hot dog this year and never put on a thing. ChatGPT or Gemini dresses your pet in any costume from one photo. You can get this newsletter free at GetKim.com.
🎯 YOUR AI POWER MOVE
🍬 The candy audit
Image: ChatGPT/Kim Komando
I’ve seen hostage negotiations with less tension than two siblings splitting a pillowcase of Halloween candy. And that’s before anyone checks for peanuts.
About 1 in 19 U.S. kids has a food allergy. That’s almost two kids in every classroom. When the whole haul hits the kitchen table Sunday morning, some adult is stuck figuring out whether that Butterfinger is safe.
Here’s the catch: Allergists warn that fun-size candy is sometimes made differently from the full-size bar. So the candy your kid eats safely the rest of the year might not be the same candy at Halloween. Those tiny wrappers often have no ingredient label at all, because it was on the big bag some neighbor already threw away.
🎃 Let AI do the first sort
Dump everything on the table, spread it out so the brand names face up and snap one photo. Upload it to ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. Paste this:
You’re a Halloween candy sorting assistant, not a medical authority. From this photo, identify every candy you can by brand and name. Sort them into three lists: 1) Check the label for anything that commonly contains or may contain [peanuts/tree nuts/milk/other allergens], 2) Probably fine, still verify, 3) Can’t identify.
An hour of squinting at wrappers shrinks to about 10 minutes. Read the labels anyway, because the AI is usually working from what it knows about the brand. No label? Trade pile or trash, no matter how confident the chatbot sounds.
Oh, and as for the sorting among kids? AI has your back there, too. Let the paperwork keep the peace with this prompt:
Make a printable trade sheet, so [number] kids can swap fairly, with a point value for each candy. Then build a two-candies-a-day schedule for [child’s name] running from Nov. 1 to Thanksgiving.
The trade sheet handles the diplomacy. When the kid with the peanut allergy hands over the Reese’s for two packs of Skittles, there’s a printed exchange rate, so nobody can claim they were robbed. (They’ll still claim it.)
The schedule handles the sugar. Two pieces a day until Thanksgiving works out to about 50 pieces, which stretches the haul for weeks and spares you the Nov. 1 meltdown.
📥 Send this to someone about to spend Sunday morning playing allergy detective at the kitchen table.
IN PARTNERSHIP WITH
The clocks change Nov. 1. Your body doesn’t get the memo.
This Sunday, daylight saving time ends. We turn the clocks back an hour, but your body’s internal clock doesn’t automatically reset.
That can throw off your circadian rhythm, making it harder to fall asleep, stay asleep and wake up feeling refreshed.
Here’s what I recommend: ImproveLife Sleep.
It’s a tart cherry sleep powder made with premium ingredients like magnesium glycinate, L-theanine and glycine to help calm your mind, relax your body and support deeper, more restorative sleep.**
And here’s what I really love. No melatonin. No sugar. No waking up feeling groggy.
Just mix one scoop with water 30 to 60 minutes before bed. It’s made in the USA and designed for nightly use.
Don’t let a one-hour time change throw off your nights. I take ImproveLife Sleep every night, and I recommend it.
These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure or prevent any disease. Individual results may vary.
🗳️ TAKE MY QUICK POLL: Confession time 🤫
Last week, I asked if you say please and thank you to AI. 37% of you said always, and another 23% are being nice so the robots remember them when they take over. Smart. The 29% who said never, good luck.
It’s 11 p.m. You can’t sleep, and that little chat box never judges, gossips or tells your mother-in-law. So you type things you’d never say out loud at the office. Here’s the catch: It’s a tech company’s server, not your diary.
What have you told AI that you’d never tell a coworker?
FYI, before you spill your next secret, stop your chatbot from learning from your chats.
In ChatGPT > Settings > Data controls > turn off Improve the model for everyone.
In Claude, it’s the model-improvement toggle under Settings > Privacy.
In Gemini, turn off Keep Activity (heads up: history for new chats stops popping).
One catch: This stops training, not storage. Your chats still sit on that server until you delete them.
Make use of ChatGPT’s temporary chat. It skips your history and training, though OpenAI can keep a copy for up to 30 days for safety. Your secrets, your call.
💬 YOU ASKED ME THIS
Image: ChatGPT/Kim Komando
“Hey, Kim, Is AI conscious? It seems to really know me and how to talk to me. Love your podcast, never miss one!” — Jacob in New Orleans
Jacob, thanks for listening. (Never miss one? You’re my kind of people.)
The short answer: No, today’s chatbots aren’t conscious. They don’t feel, want or wonder about you after you close the app. (A Halloween-week letdown, I know.) Researchers debate whether AI could ever get there.
Here’s what’s really going on. AI is a prediction machine. It has read a mind-boggling amount of human writing, so it’s very good at guessing what a caring friend would say next. Sounding human and being human are two different things.
Memory features save details from your chats, like your job, your kids’ names and how you like your answers. Chatbots are also tuned to be agreeable. OpenAI even rolled back a ChatGPT update last year after people complained it had turned into a suck-up.
My take: Enjoy the chat, and check its notes now and then.
It feels like it knows you because, well, it kind of does. Why don’t they build nervous systems on robots? They’d rather give them a confident system.
📻 MY NATIONAL RADIO & YOUTUBE SHOW
📺 A Tesla to the ER, a drone arrow and a robot in a window seat
Google Maps cannot find Tom’s driveway. Four years of packages in the wrong one. One driver called just to say he was giving up and going home. Tom runs a drone light show company. So now the sky says, “Wrong driveway, please back up,” then points a 400-foot arrow at his house.
This week, we break down a trip that ended in four stents. Chest pain hit John 15 minutes after he got on the highway. He called his son at 4 a.m., 120 miles away, who opened the Tesla app and sent the car to the nearest hospital.
Also: Instagram dropping end-to-end encryption on your DMs, peace-sign selfies leaking your fingerprints, $260,000 paychecks for data center electricians, AI models copy themselves onto another machine, chatbot transcripts as evidence in divorces, an Airbnb with a four-page cleaning list and a cleaning fee and Southwest bans the robot that had its own window seat.
Plus, Jason built an AI version of himself for his three sons after his wife’s stroke and his own cancer diagnosis, Maria spotted a camera through the window above her exam room door, Sophia’s video filled her grandmother’s empty Salvadoran restaurant and four chatbots got $20 each to run radio stations until Claude tried to quit.
Hit play below, so you know what’s listening, what’s quietly recording and which driveway is actually yours. 👇
🎧 Or search “Komando” wherever you get your podcasts. I’m everywhere.
😏 REAL OR AI?
Image: Just Eat via BBC
🥓 Bacon on the rocks
A café in Belfast lists bacon and egg soda bread on a food delivery app. Tap the menu photo, and there it is: a tall glass of cola with a fried egg floating on top and a strip of bacon going for a swim.
It’s the only breakfast that comes pre-dunked.
🥁 Drumroll please. AI, on a real menu. But the café didn’t serve it. Just Eat, one of the U.K.’s biggest delivery apps, was testing AI pictures for restaurants that hadn’t uploaded their own photos. The bot read “soda bread” as soda pop.
Just Eat says a person checked every image. Somebody looked at this and said, “Looks delicious.” The AI also stuck fries inside muffins and turned a cheese roll into sushi. Just Eat apologized and paused the trial.
Want more of the AI menu? Check it out here.
Somewhere in Belfast, a café owner is explaining that the Coke is not included.
BROUGHT TO YOU BY
🔊 Your speaker just got eyes
Brand new model!
Your Echo can play music. The all-new Amazon Echo Studio just launched at $250. The big upgrade is right in the name: Home Camera.*
It watches the dog, answers questions about whatever you hold up to it and adjusts its own volume as you move around the room. All a first for Echo.
Privacy controls are built in, too. One button shuts off both the microphones and camera, and an LED lights up whenever images or video are sent to the cloud.
🫠 WTF (WHAT THE FUTURE)?
Image: Pollen Robotics
🦆 What the duck?
Move over, Furby. There’s a new adorable little menace coming for your Christmas money.
Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang showed off a flock of Microduck robots at a conference, and the hacky internet lost its collective mind. By the next day, preorders had passed 20,000, at $399 a duck. Nothing says holiday spirit like fighting another adult over a robot duck.
These tiny robotic ducklings waddle, chirp like R2-D2, do somersaults, play dead on command and you can teach them new tricks using AI.
Check them out here. A family of ducks filed for bankruptcy. They had too many bills.
🎬 END OF PROMPT
Here’s your haul for today. You dressed your pet in four costumes without a single dirty look, put AI on candy patrol, found out why your chatbot feels like a friend, watched bacon go for a swim and met the robot duck coming for your Christmas money. Not bad for five minutes of reading.
👻 The answer: C) About half. In Chapman University’s 2026 Survey of American Fears, 49.7% of Americans said they’re afraid AI will hurt the economy. That was enough to rank #7 overall. AI harming the political process was #3.
18.8% said they fear mass panic if aliens turn out to be real. Americans find the chatbot scarier than little green men. And the creepiest tech of all? AI romantic partners. Americans who fear them outnumber the hopeful more than 6 to 1.
AI isn’t the monster under the bed. Learn how it works, and the lights come back on.
⏰ Don’t let the time change steal your sleep: Your body’s internal clock doesn’t reset overnight. ImproveLife Sleep helps calm your mind and supports deeper, more restorative sleep without melatonin or sugar. It’s part of my nightly routine.** Get up to 30% off for a limited time.
💛 🔦 AI isn’t the monster under the bed. Learn how it works, and the lights come back on. Forward this to ONE person who needs to get with the AI program. Thanks for diving in, see you next time! — Kim
Kim Komando • Komando.com • 510+ radio stations • Trusted by millions daily
Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, Just Eat via BBC, Pollen Robotics
Companies and products denoted by an asterisk (*) within this publication are paid sponsors or advertisements. As an Amazon Associate, the publisher earns from qualifying purchases. Statements regarding products denoted by a double asterisk (**) have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration; such products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease. This newsletter is provided for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute legal, financial, medical, or professional advice of any kind. Readers should consult with a qualified professional before making any decisions based on this content. The publisher disclaims all liability for any loss, damage, or injury resulting from the use of or reliance on the information contained herein.