Commentary: The true cost of AI scams isn’t financial – it’s human

What AI will also do is replicate the scam and develop different versions for different countries and people. Instead of a former minister, change it to another personality and journalist for use in Japan, the US or Malaysia or any other country. 

It is able to customise individual scam messages to target and entice different people with different interests and inclinations. If you’re a football fan, the story might feature Lionel Messi or Jamie Oliver if you’re into food. 

It is this scaling and replication inherent in AI’s capabilities that make it potent. As a result, according to an Interpol report in March, AI-driven scams earn their perpetrators 4.5 times as much money as traditional methods. 

There is therefore no question that it will be increasingly used to deceive and cheat and that more people will lose money in the future. 

You might say that there are more serious issues that will arise in an AI-driven future – job losses, economic competitiveness, military capabilities and destruction of human lives, among others. So what if a few people get scammed because of their gullibility or even greed? 

There is a wider issue though that needs to be addressed. AI-generated scams are ultimately about the art and science of deception – how you target human weaknesses and exploit the failings of people who are otherwise normal and rational.

Because of its ability to sieve large amounts of data through the countless falsehoods it produces, knowing what works and what doesn’t, AI can very quickly understand the workings of not just the human mind but human emotion, all of which play a part in how someone falls for a scam.