Spam, Scam and AI...

Since Friday, I’ve received quite a few spam calls, and out of curiosity, I answered a couple. Every time I pick up one of these calls, there’s a robot on the other end of the line asking me to update my personal data with my carrier.

That’s their claim, not mine—but I know 100% my carrier isn’t making those calls. I don’t need to update any personal data, and even if that were the case, I’d be getting a call from a customer service rep asking me to head into an office, not some shady-ass robot over the phone.

I’m not old and salted, but I’ve also never been scammed in any way—and I plan to keep it that way. That said, there are tons of people who fall prey to all sorts of scams every damn day. Some scammers show up in person and trick old people into handing over their life savings, while others run their game online or over the phone.

I personally know an old man who got scammed out of over $1,000 by some lowlifes who knocked on his door, claiming his daughter had been in an accident and desperately needed money. And guess what... they were the “messengers” there to collect the so-called support.

You’ve gotta be creative as a scammer and constantly rebrand yourself, and we’ve seen that in the crypto space plenty. But honestly, we haven’t seen anything yet, if you ask me. We’re just scratching the surface when it comes to AI—and that tech is going to be insanely lucrative for scammers in the near future.

Generative AI will be able to fake video calls, voice calls, personal data—you name it. And when that shit ends up in the hands of scumbags, a lot of people are going to fall for it.

Back in the early days of Yahoo Messenger and excessive email use, there were those classic African prince and African goddess scams—where scammers would pretend to be some royal runaway or a gorgeous girl, scamming lonely fools into sending them serious amounts of money. Some were promised marriage, others were tricked into helping “unfreeze” bank funds, hoping they’d get a cut. All of them got played.

The mother of scammers is always pregnant, and I’ve got a gut feeling that in the coming years, we’ll see more and more naive folks getting finessed through deepfakes and other tech-based trickery. I mean, they already faked a video of Obama so well it was indistinguishable from the real thing. Imagine how many hot AI girls—powered by that kind of tech—are gonna fool all sorts of wankers into donating piles of cash thinking they’ve found “the one.”

Technology is a blessing when used right—but in the hands of the wrong people, it’s pure poison...

What about you, though? Have you ever been scammed in any way, or know anyone who’s fallen for some stupidly obvious scam?

Thanks for your attention,
Adrian