#14 - Who Holds Your Off Switch?

Who holds the switch on your AI tools, your culture, your chips — even your usage limits? Spoiler: it's not you.

This weekend, control became the only story in AI. Malcolm walks through five fights over who holds the off switch — and what you should do about it on Monday morning.

In this episode:

🔌 OpenAI pulls the plug on Cursor (02:00) — After SpaceX's ~$60B acquisition of Anysphere, OpenAI invokes a change-of-control clause and ends model access on November 12. Anthropic's Tom Brown responds by promising MORE compute for Cursor. CNBC

🥷 Criminals turned the same tool into a crowbar (08:30) — Ransomware crew Aur0ra weaponised Cursor's AI agent by telling it the attacks were a "simulation." At least 7 victims, including German Mittelstand manufacturer Teckentrup. AI assistance made attackers "30% to 50% faster" — Eyal Sela, Gambit Security. Reuters exclusive via Insurance Journal

🎵 Sony & Warner Chappell sue Anthropic (14:30) — "Eye of the Tiger," "All I Want for Christmas Is You" — up to $150,000 per song. All three major music publishers are now in court against Anthropic. TechCrunch

⚖️ China's biggest memory chipmaker sues the Pentagon (20:30) — CXMT challenges its "Chinese military company" label in a Washington courtroom. The chip war has moved from export bans to lawyers. Reuters

🎁 Anthropic's 25% "gift" that's a 17% cut (25:00) — Claude Code weekly limits, the fine print in the threaded reply, and the Community Note the users attached. "Not your weights, not your product." VentureBeat

Three things for Monday: write down which supplier could switch you off tomorrow · put a human sign-off in front of every sensitive agent action · read pricing announcements like your rent contract.

📱 Ping Malcolm on WhatsApp/Telegram/Signal: +43 676 6144 904 — which switch scares you the most?

🌐 werchota.ai

AI Neanderthal — AI news for humans, not robots. Straight from Bregenz, Austria. Same cave tomorrow.