The Stranger In Your Pocket: Pig-Butchering & Other AI Scams

Last week I spent two hours at the bank with an elderly relative who had gotten scammed out of thousands of dollars and other personal information. And yes this has been happening since snake-oil salesmen rolled in, conned us, and then moseyed on out of town with our money... but now it's on steroids. 

The Economist held a contest to redesign a cover (my entry above); original story is about Pig-Butchering 🐷 🗡 

Pig-butchering, or sha zhu pan, is Chinese criminal slang. First the scammers build a sty, with fake social-media profiles. Then they pick the pig, by identifying a target; raise the pig, by spending weeks or months building trust; cut the pig, by tempting them to invest; and butcher the pig by squeezing “every last drop of juice” from them, their family and friends.

Online scamming compares in size and scope to the illegal drug industry. (est: 1.5M criminals)

The difference is you don't have to be doing drugs or any illegal activities to encounter this phenomenon. Just living your life and they come to you. 

Scammers target all human frailties: fear, loneliness, greed, grief and boredom. 

There are romance scams, crypto and investment scams, identity scams, and who knows what else is coming. The point is we are not handling this on a global scale and it will eventually touch us or someone we care about. And AI will simply make them more efficient, realistic and harder to trace. 

This is a security and defense threat! It's not only money and humiliation in the mix but the opportunity for blackmailing and ransom leverage. It should be a top priority while we have control to some degree. What will happen when all our data is accesible in the cloud and the scammers don't need people pulling off these scams but AI can do it on its own?! 🤖

Banks, crypto exchanges, internet-service providers, telecoms companies, social-media platforms and e-commerce firms as well as schools, community organizers and government entities need to sound the alarms and work together to educate the public, protect the money and safety of those who get insnared and use this as a diplomatic minimum for good foreign relations. Cut off access to our citizens if they do not enforce laws against these types of criminal activity. 

Yes, suckers are born every day but never have we had to protect ourselves and every aspect of our lives from this kind of sophisticated technology and threats. Good Capitalism means protecting your clients, workers and industry from fraud- we need to pull together before none of us have any roast beef left and we're all wee, wee, weeing wondering if we still have a home.     

Original

The original cover and the winners: 

[Note: This is part of a project of mine: AI COVERS. This is not an actual Economist cover, nor is it endorsed in any way by their publisher/owners.]

[🤓 FOLLOW UP...

A friend asked for examples when I posted this on FB, so here is what I answered her back:

For my family situation it was a phone call about tax concerns (totally made up but scared them). 

For me, it was on a dating app (Hinge).

And for others I read about recently everything from on LinkedIn pretending to be businesses that weren't legit.

Lesson is that it's not a few bad apples, it's a highly organized well oiled machine of organized crime and everyone is vulnerable because we never think it'll happen to us or our loved ones. 

Take away: NEVER give anyone your personal info or access to your money unless you are the one instigating the contact. Don't click on links, instead go to the sites and accounts directly. And no one will call you with demands for payment or info that is such an emergency they need it right then. Block anyone whenever in doubt. Other tips: here ]

IDENTITY INTEGRITY STANDARD: Trust in the Age of AI 🤖

A year ago I created the Good Capitalism project and focused in on the dangers AI was going to bring to the conversation of ESG and business and culture. Then last summer I experienced first hand the real world effects of how easily one can be fooled interacting with someone using AI voice and videos attempting to lure me into a relationship.

I didn't think I'd live long enough to see AI come to fruition and now we're at the genesis of a technology that threatens the core of humanity. And I don't mean that to be dramatic, but it's true. 

Last week I wrote about seeing The AI Doc and then posted on FB I would go again with anyone who wanted to see it. One nibble but as far as I can tell no plans by my friends to see it yet. Which I get because they have lives that are only barely touching AI and what's coming yet but here's my worry: when it really hits we won't have time to wind it back fast enough to correct courses. 

Trust in institutions has rapidly dissolved in a shocking manner, especially with our government these days. When something happens now we are so numb we just go back to our lives and trudge ahead trying to pluck moments of happiness in the chaos that surrounds us. 

But if we don't try to rein this in, we will have no sense of what truth is and what we can believe in. The saying: I heard it from the horse's mouth or I saw it with my own eyes are about to mean nothing because AI will be able to use deepfakes so real you won't know who you're talking to and who to believe.

That is why I think a first doable step should be to create and stand behind an Identity Integrity Standard. Basically urging those with power to enforce a verify or delete approach to public figures identities. Use AI to filter out fake accounts, bots, impersonators. etc. It's one tiny step to put up some safeguards in weeding out a portion of the current fraud and erosion of trust online. 

Above is a deck I will be sharing with some people I hope can help make this happen. But I want everyone to be aware because it's already here and your kids, elderly parents, heck... any of us are at risk of being deceived by bad actors. And were just at the baby-stage of this tech. Brace yourselves and enjoy the trust you can rely on now. It's about to be more precious than gold.

And don't worry about this gloomy take 😬 it's necessary... but I also spent the week seeing Project Hail Mary (don't watch preview just go- it's a masterpiece!) and the Artemis II Astronauts and I cried at the hope and humanity I felt. We can have an amazing amazing amazing future if we come together. 

Life still makes me hopeful and you know I loved finding out
Moon Joy is a thing 🌎 🚀 🌘