🤖 AI Didn’t Invent Slop… Humans Did. 😬 AHK News 2026-07-09

AutoHotkey Newsletter

Howdy,

We hear a lot (especially from programmers) about “AI slop“.

But what we don’t hear people talking about is how the amount of “Human slop” greatly outweighs the amount of AI slop.

Just because a human did something people often think it is “better” but sadly there are a LOT of people that don’t know what they’re doing❗

 

It won’t be long now before AI is better than most humans at many things.

 

But don’t fret.   Since the dawn of time, Man has been using tools to be more efficient.

It’s just now that the tools are so efficient we are having to compete with them!

Now on with the show…

Learn how to Master VSCode Make the switch to v2 Intro to AutoHotkey Intermediate AutoHotkey Intermediate ObjectsGUIs are Easy w/AutoHotkey Access all our Courses; Quit when you want

stopdoingManually


Need a Magnifying Glass? We got you covered…

Like everyone else, as I get older I struggle with small text on the screen.

That’s why I created MagGlass which lets you quickly look closer at your screen (without changing your DPI).

Not only can you quickly zoom in you can change the size of both the inspection area as well as the render area.

Check it out in this short video.

Cant Read Your Screen Anymore 👀 Try This
Cant Read Your Screen Anymore 👀 Try This


Using Chrome’s hidden Local LLM

A while ago I made a video explaining how Chrome (secretly) installs a 4 gigabyte local LLM and walked through how you can remove it.

But then we got to thinking, what if instead of deleting it, we use it❓

While I was limited to accessing it through Chrome, I was able to create an html page to utilize it as a local LLM.   You can check it out in this video.

It’s not crazy powerful but it is local thus does not (seem) to be connected back to the cloud.

Accessing Chromes Hidden Local LLM via HTML
Accessing Chromes Hidden Local LLM via HTML


Easily Adding Watermarks to your Videos

I like the idea of adding watermarks to videos to: reinforce branding, reduce theft, and tag my videos so others know where they came from.

It used to be a painful process.  I say used to because now with Watermarker, it is super simple!

You can see just how easy it is in this video.

Easy Way to Add Transparent Watermarks 💧
Easy Way to Add Transparent Watermarks 💧


Improving People’s Lives: Story #105

I had a call with a friend from grad school yesterday.   At the end of the call he asked me for examples of how people are using AI.

After the call I had a quick thought.   Why not have Claude loop over our folders, build a list of our AI scripts, organize them into groups, write a brief explanation and Hyperlink to the ones we sell and posted it to the-Automator here.

As part of the process, I also recorded this video explaining how I used AI to do the above.

How AI Built a Page Listing All My AI Tools
How AI Built a Page Listing All My AI Tools

I then made a few quick edits to the video, uploaded it to YouTube and then had AI Transcribe it, generate 3 thumbnails, the summary, 10 possible title and tags for it.

The entire process (from when I told AI to loop over my files to finish the upload of the video) took less than 15 minutes.

I think this would have taken me at least 2 days of work!


📚 What we’re reading


🤖 AI News that you Need to Know


⚡️Productivity tips:

I love when I find others posting about their use of AutoHotkey


🤣 A spot of Humor:  I’m a big fan of Craig Ferguson

Lauren Cohan – gorgeous and funny – Ferguson interview – March 2014

Lauren Cohan - gorgeous and funny - Ferguson interview - March 2014


What we 🅰utomated this week with AutoHotkey #138

This week I dug into using AI to actually debug and build my AutoHotkey scripts, including a live look at fixing an Add to Startup script through a plain AI conversation.

I show off my Voice To Do web app, a local Transcriber that saves money over cloud services, my AHK file explorer (not released yet but making progress), media shrinkers, QR tools, and my strategy of pairing flagship models like Opus for planning with small local models for execution.

In this video I walk you through all of it, plus the reasoning tricks we’ve been kicking around in the Hero Club.


Clients say…

Holy shit❗ This is amazing — Dr. Kamran J. (Radiologist)


Cartoon superhero mascot in green costume beside the bold text AHK Hero on a yellow background AHK Hero 🦸

Consider joining the 🦸Hero club! Members receive 25% off courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc.    Currently we have over 587 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to Hero members❗

During this Friday’s call we’re planning to discuss:

  • Help Hero Members with their Questions & Code
  • AHK Tools
      • AHK File Explorer (Feedback and Questions about Features)
      • Taskbar
      • Help Extractor & Inspector
      • Noise removal via Replicate
      • Borrowing Firefox Cookies
      • Watermarker: add a watermark to your video
      • Noticeable Text: Vertical columns
      • URL Memory: Auto show feature
      • Ffmpeg: ImageSize Reducer
      • Start Menu (Prompt Assistant update)
      • AutoRuns / Auto Start Manager
      • WatchFolders
  • Progressive Web Apps
    • PhoneDeck: Controlling your computer from your phone (the easy way)
    • LAN Display: Display page on local network
    • VoiceToDo: Use voice to text and AI to build your to-do list
  • LLMs 
    • LLM Unlimited OCR plus Python Text extraction
    • LLM Remove Background from Picture
    • Grok 4.5: Fast, Smart and uses less tokens

They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and 3 hours a week where we help people with their automation issues (the Saturday calls are geared towards people new to Automation with AI)


🗣️ 💭 Quotable quotes

  • It’s like deja-vu, all over again — Yogi Berra
  • Live below your means. And avoid all debt — if you can’t pay cash-in-full, don’t buy it. Let your thrill be in your accomplishments, not the toys you can suddenly afford on credit — John Carlton
  • Listen more than you talk. And when you talk, observe the rules of conversation. If these rules are a mystery to you, go hunt them down — John Carlton

AHK Newsletter⏩SHARE WITH A FRIEND⏩

Do you know someone that would benefit from learning useful automation tips like the gems in today’s issue?  Take a second and forward this newsletter and bask in the glow of their undying gratitude.  Was this email forwarded to you?

Sign up for this Newsletter here.  We never share your email with anyone.  Ever!


the-Automator  Dedicated to Multiplying your Income

Joe, Isaias, Irfan and staff


P.S. What about you?  Do you think the average person is better or worse than AI at the moment❓  We discuss this and more during the Hero calls.

AHK News 2026-03-26 Why I’m not (currently) worried about AI

AutoHotkey Newsletter

Howdy %Name%,

Here are two graphs that are why I’m not worried about losing business to AI (yet)

I’m proud to say most Hero members fall between the red and yellow squares ❗

AIusage

Here is another interesting graph I researched and created.   Fiverr and UpWork revenue since 2019

FiverUpworkRevenue

I’m sure there are losers as well as winners in that chart but, if you’re embracing AI then I’m willing to bet you’re on the winning side!

How about you❓   Want to be one of the 3.2 million in that red square🟥❓  

If you’re serious about using AI + AutoHotkey like this, the Hero group is where we actually build this stuff together.

Now on with the show…

Learn how to Master VSCode Make the switch to v2 Intro to AutoHotkey Intermediate AutoHotkey Intermediate ObjectsGUIs are Easy w/AutoHotkey Access all our Courses; Quit when you want

ForAnyone

We finally launched AutomateMyTask  in v2

This is a phenomenal executable for writing Fuzzy matching image search v2 code❗

You can check out the fundamentals in this video or click here to learn more about AutomateMyTask .

I also have this AmT playlist which has very short, to-the-point videos!

🚀 AutoHotkey V2 Tool That Writes Code FOR YOU! (Game Changer)
🚀 AutoHotkey V2 Tool That Writes Code FOR YOU! (Game Changer)

If you’re new to working with Functions check out our Intro to AHK Course


Pros / Cons of various ways to use Claude Code

I’ve been using the Claude Desktop app to work with Claude but then switch to using VS Code.  Surprisingly there were big differences!  And then you have the Chrome Extension not to mention Cowork so I asked Notebook LM to help explain the Pros & Cons of each approach. 

AutomateMyTask  lets you visually capture elements and instantly generate working AutoHotkey v2 code—no guessing, no trial-and-error.

The video turned out great!

🚀 Claude Code: CLI vs VS Code Extension – Which One is right for you❓
🚀 Claude Code: CLI vs VS Code Extension - Which One is right for you❓


How much should you pay for AI

Obviously it is tough for me to say how much you should pay for AI however I can tell you this.  I was being overly stingy❗

In this video I explain how I finally realized that I was being an idiot and switched to the Max $100 a month plan.   My guess is you should upgrade too!

💸 From $20 to $200: My Claude AI Upgrade Journey | AHK Hero Extract
💸 From $20 to $200: My Claude AI Upgrade Journey | AHK Hero Extract


Make sure Goldilocks gets the right AI model

While we’re on the topic of paying for AI, in this video I walked through how you can make it easier to decide which model you should be using (depending on the task you’re asking AI to do for you.)

💸 From $20 to $200: My Claude AI Upgrade Journey | AHK Hero Extract
💸 From $20 to $200: My Claude AI Upgrade Journey | AHK Hero Extract


Improving People’s Lives: Story #88

I spent an hour the other day showing a friend of mine how easy it was to use Claude Code through VS code.   Now he’s leveled up and is creating tools that he never dreamed possible!


📚 What we’re reading


🤖 AI News that you Need to Know


⚡️Productivity tips:  

Use Control+Shift+P to open the “Command Palette in VS Code


🤣 A spot of Humor:

This is, quite possibly, the worst movie ever made❗   Don’t’ say I didn’t warn you❗

After Last Season (2009) 

After Last Season (2009) Movie (2009) Watch whole movie to ender 1k giveway


What we 🅰utomated this week with AutoHotkey #127

In this week’s video I show you a ton of the tools we’ve been building lately

From a headline scoring tool inspired by legendary copywriters, to an icon finder that uses AI embeddings so you can search by concept instead of keywords (search “fly” and it finds airplanes!).

I also walk through some slick UIA Inspector upgrades that auto-generate your automation code and a bunch of other goodies like image converters, notification systems, and FFMPEG updates.

If you’re curious how AI is supercharging what’s possible with AutoHotkey, you’ll want to check this one out.

What we Automated with AutoHotkey #127
What we Automated with AutoHotkey #127


Clients say…

You guys are awesome — Allen Horn


Cartoon superhero mascot in green costume beside the bold text AHK Hero on a yellow background  Hero 🦸

Consider joining the 🦸Hero club! Members receive 25% off courses, consultations, tutoring, done for you project work, etc.    Currently we have over 539 hours of recordings teaching AutoHotkey that is exclusive to AHK Hero members❗

During this Friday’s call we’re planning to discuss:

  • Help Hero Members with their Questions & Code
  • AHK Script Maker: Check for update, Dash
  • Using Try/Catch in your code
  • AutomateMyTask – released in v2
  • Send/Post Message Syntax writer
  • UIA / Message Syntax writer hybrid
  • Using Peacock with VS Code
  • Setting default values in an ini file

They also have access to exclusive & pre-released content and 3 hours a week where we help people with their AHK issues (the Saturday calls are geared towards people new to AutoHotkey.)


🗣️ 💭 Quotable quotes

  • There are no secrets to success only things you don’t happen to know right now — Joe Glines
  • Learn how to calculate the future cost of your bad decisions — Joe Glines
  • Don’t sacrifice peace of mind for a piece of luxury — James Cleary

AHK Newsletter⏩SHARE WITH A FRIEND⏩

Do you know someone that would benefit from learning useful automation tips like the gems in today’s issue?  Take a second and forward this newsletter and bask in the glow of their undying gratitude.  Was this email forwarded to you?

Sign up for this Newsletter here.  We never share your email with anyone.  Ever!


the-Automator  Dedicated to Multiplying your Income

Joe, Isaias, Irfan and staff


P.S. I’ve had an insanely productive week using AI to write tools for us! 

If your struggling with AI then you really should consider joining our Hero club!  I guarantee you’ll level you up every meeting❗