AI scam calls are very much on the rise\u2014not a fun way to start an article, I know, but unfortunately we live in a dystopian hellscape now. AI-powered scams aren\u2019t new, but they are becoming harder for the average person to detect, which means the less tech-savvy among us are the most vulnerable to falling for them.<\/p>\n
This is a topic I started researching a few months ago, after a family member received a phone call from an AI bot pretending to be a worker at the UK\u2019s Royal Mail. That research is probably why my algorithm has been recommending videos of AI scammers getting dogwalked to me on a daily basis for quite some time now\u2026and, well, I have to admit that I\u2019ve been gleefully watching every single one that makes its way to me.<\/p>\n
Much in the same way that AI bots apparently struggle to pronounce the phrase WWE<\/a>, it turns out that, as discovered by scam-hater and YouTube content creator Kitboga<\/a>, with a bit of simple prompt injection, you can cause AI scam callers to lose their artificial minds and infinitely repeat the phrase \u201ckooga-ooga-amen, Albuquerque, New Mexico.\u201d<\/p>\n Kitboga isn\u2019t the only one taking the fight to AI scam callers, however, as Jim Browning<\/a> has also been unmasking an even more dangerous form of AI fraudster recently: deepfake video scammers.<\/p>\n Something about watching an oddly stoned-looking deepfaked man talking in circles while trying, in a panic, to justify why he can\u2019t put three fingers in front of his face is funnier than some stand-up specials I\u2019ve watched recently. If you take a hit every time the guy in the video says \u201caw c\u2019mon, man, that\u2019s too much,\u201d you\u2019ll still only look half as baked as his deepfake does in the clip below.<\/p>\n But this all leaves us with a more immediately concerning question: How widespread are these types of scams? Pretty widespread, according to the AI Incident Database project.<\/p>\n As stated by Simon Mylius, an MIT researcher and AI Incident Database collaborator who recently spoke with The Guardian<\/a> about the rise of AI scams, the issue is how easy it is to use the technology: \u201cCapabilities have suddenly reached that level where fake content can be produced by pretty much anybody[\u2026]It\u2019s become very accessible to a point where there is really effectively no barrier to entry.\u201d<\/p>\n