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🛠️ Welcome to Tool Kit Tuesday, friend. This is the one that earns its keep. No buzzwords, no 40-slide decks, just the AI shortcuts worth using before Friday. Pull up a chair and make a Splash. Did someone forward this to you? Sign up here, it’s free.

HERE’S WHAT’S IN THIS ISSUE:

🧾 Make AI audit your faded receipts.
🔎 “AGI” decoded + the $100 billion definition.
⚠️ Your bank is calling. It isn’t your bank.
🔒 Hide a chat before you share your screen.
🫠 A robot dog takes up car detailing.

But first, some trivia. Be honest. Do you say “please” to ChatGPT? Most of us do. In one survey, 67% of Americans who use AI said they’re always polite to it. 

Sweet, right? Here’s the thing. Every extra word you type takes computing power to process. Multiply those tiny bits of manners by hundreds of millions of people, and they add up fast.

🙏 How much has all that “please” and “thank you” cost OpenAI, according to CEO Sam Altman? A) About $50, B) Around $2 million, C) Tens of millions of dollars or D) Nothing, the robots are just happy to feel appreciated? Keep scrolling, the answer is kindly waiting at the end. 

AI built my husband a website. Black Friday makes yours dirt cheap. I put AI to the test. My husband needed a website, so I set a timer and let Hostinger’s AI do the lifting. The clock stopped at 32 minutes, website done with the new domain included. I got you early access to Hostinger’s Black Friday sale, and it’s up to 83% off at Hostinger.com/Kim. That’s a website for less than a cup of coffee a month.* Hurry, this deal won’t last!

✅ Quick favor: Free newsletter, zero catch. That’s thanks Hostinger, so take a peek and click a link or two. Thank you! — Kim

This free newsletter brings you the terms you need to know to be AI literate!

AGI (noun): Short for artificial general intelligence, AI that can do most jobs a person can, as well as a person can. Sounds clear. It isn’t. Nobody agrees on what counts, so everyone picks their own finish line. It’s like a contractor telling you the kitchen is “basically done.” So everyone’s almost there, especially the folks trying to raise money.

The tell? Microsoft’s contract with OpenAI reportedly defined AGI as AI that could earn $100 billion in profits. Not brainpower. Moola. Now outside expert panels have to verify any AGI claim.

When this word comes up in conversation, people are talking about: a CEO who says AGI is coming soon. Nvidia’s CEO said it arrived in September. OpenAI’s Sam Altman says OpenAI will have it by New Year’s. Read it as a sales pitch, not a weather report.

Always right around the corner? The perfect distance, close enough to interest investors, far enough that nobody can check. Sounds like my plan to clean out the garage.

I used to trust my gut on scam calls. Thick accent, awkward pause, hang up. That gut has been retired.

Your phone rings, and caller ID says it’s your bank. A calm, polished voice flags a suspicious $900 charge and wants to confirm a few details. It’s an AI voice riding on spoofed caller ID, and every old tell is gone. No robot tone. No weird delay. Just a very convincing stranger.

The setup is cheap. Cloning apps cost a few bucks a month and can copy a specific person’s voice from a few seconds of audio. Your voicemail greeting counts. Add spoofed caller ID and an autodialer, and one crook sounds like an entire bank call center.

The FBI’s Internet Crime Report last year gave AI its own category for the first time: 22,364 complaints and $893 million in losses. That’s only what people reported.

The ask never changes: Read back the code we texted you, or move your money to a safe account. The whole call center is one guy with a laptop.

Hang up without confirming a single detail. Call the number on the back of your bank card, not the number the caller gave you.

Never read a one-time code out loud to anyone who called you. Set a family safe word for emergency calls that sound like someone you love. 

No real bank will ever ask you to move money to a “safe account.” Hear that phrase, and you’re talking to a thief.

📩 Send this to someone who still picks up because caller ID said it’s the bank.

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Imagine sharing your screen on a client call and your ChatGPT sidebar helpfully announces: “Nicest way to tell someone their logo is ugly.” It’s the client’s logo. 

OpenAI rolled out locked chats to everyone, free plan included. Lock a conversation, and it vanishes from your history, pinned chats and search, hidden behind a four-digit PIN or Face ID. 

Unlike temporary chat, it sticks around for when you come back. Client forecasts and casserole questions shouldn’t share a sidebar.

Setup takes about a minute, and my walk-through, the exact prompt and the one mistake that erases every locked chat are one tap away.

I couldn’t fit all the steps here in this newsletter. So for your email sanity, I thoughtfully wrote them all up on my site. Go ahead and click that link below now for the steps. You’re welcome.

⏱️ Do the 60-second setup. →

You know that awkward moment when someone starts cleaning your windshield at a stoplight before you’ve agreed to anything? Give that person four robotic legs, and you’ve got a whole new problem.

A ridiculous AI clip shows a robot dog hopping onto a car hood and giving a guy’s commute a surprise detailing appointment. The driver says he’s got no cash. The bot’s response? A QR code.

Check it out here. Looks like machine world domination didn’t pan out so hot. Bots, meet tip-only gig work. This reminds me, why did the robot go to the bank? He needed more cache.

Share this now:

Here’s your haul for today. You made AI audit your faded receipts, learned why everyone’s AGI finish line keeps moving, hung up on a fake bank and locked your ChatGPT sidebar before the next screen share. Not bad for five minutes of reading.

😱 This just in as we go to send this newsletter this morning: OpenAI claimed its AI cracked three problems that have stumped the world’s smartest humans for decades. (Big if true.) One math proof settles the Kakeya conjecture in every dimension. Another knocks down the Exponential Time Hypothesis, a computer science rule hundreds of papers lean on. The third tackles part of a $1 million Millennium Prize puzzle in physics. Experts, including a Nobel winner, are now checking the work. OpenAI says it wants zero credit. Read more here.

💰 The answer: C) Tens of millions of dollars. When someone asked Sam Altman about the cost of all our “please” and “thank you” messages, he called it money well spent. 

And in a very normal and not-at-all-ominous flourish, he added, “You never know.” Fun fact: 18% of the 67% of people being polite admitted they want to stay on the robots’ good side in case AI takes over.

My take? Be nice if you want. When it comes to AI, clear beats courteous. Skip the verbal garnish, and tell the bot exactly what you need.

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💛 The smartest move today wasn’t letting AI do the work. It was checking it. That’s the part nobody can automate, and you just did it. Forward this to someone who still trusts caller ID. I’ll see you on Thursday with another issue of this great free newsletter. Appreciate you being here! Drop a rating below too! — Kim

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

Photo credit(s): ChatGPT/Kim Komando, FIBATDOR, @JasonrShuman via X

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