Clearly evil

Lawyer Richard Stevens lays out a strong case that AI makes extortion too easy.

This style of extortion is VERY old, a variant on the Spanish Prisoner swindle. Your beloved grandson or your elderly aunt is being held captive! You need to pay the ransom now! But the payment is semi-legal and involves bribing some officials, so you’d better not call the cops!

The old warning shows of the 40s and 50s dramatized this nasty scam. At that time the swindlers had to do a lot of hard work. They had to research your family through libraries and newspaper archives and personal spycraft, then write a convincing letter, then make sure the supposed “captive” wasn’t going to walk in the door or call you while you were under the spell of the swindlers.

Stevens shows how AI makes it super-easy.

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Today, Mom gets a text message demanding a ransom, threatening that the caller will torture her child to death before her eyes. “Click on the link,” the text says. She clicks through, and there in full color is her child, tied to a chair, wearing familiar clothes. The child calls out for Mom to help, and the torture begins. The screams, the cries of the child, all very real — Mom’s worst nightmare is happening.

Click on the link to electronically send money, or the torture continues. Mom has no time to research if this horror is real. The child is at a camp 300 miles away. Mom pays. The torture stops. The child tearfully thanks Mom and is let go. All on full-color, clear video.

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Most uses of AI are bad for society in an economic way, eliminating useful jobs and stealing creative work. This use is clearly evil.