AI Cyber Kidnapping

What can be used will be used by criminals.

There is a lot of bullying going on where fake nudes are circulating and stressing mainly the female population.  https://wapo.st/3HcKqfx

A Foreign Exchange Student from mainland China was cyber kidnapped in Utah last week.  No AI was used.

The scam works like this: 

• The 17yr old boy was contacted and told to hide out of sight or his family in China would be killed.
• His parents in China were contacted and told their son was kidnapped and to wire $80K ransom to various crypto currency accounts or their son would be killed. 
• Nobody physically touched the boy. This was all done by TEXT & Phone messages.
• He was targetted because of his foreign student status and presumably because he was too afraid to contact local law enforcement.

The boy was found 3 days later in the chilly Utah mountains, living in a small pup tent with no heat and minimal food & water.  It was minus 9 degrees outside.  He was confused, half-frozen & hungry but otherwise fine. 

The ransom money his parents paid is gone.  There's no way to trace it.

We are on a dark road here. The speed with which these AI companies have sprung up, the number of people making images in Midjourney and others and then proclaiming themselves to be "artists," and now this. I've seen some of these videos. Celebrities saying things they never actually said. And you cannot tell the difference. It's another instance of technology advancing faster than our ability to deal with the ramifications and repercussions, not to mention the ethics. And the worst part is that it came at a time when people already can't trust their own eyes. News anchors look straight into the camera and lie, newspapers which used to be known for journalistic standards lie. You think you're seeing a pretty woman and then find out she has fake hair extensions and fake lips. We all feel like we're standing on a foundation of shifting sand.

Thank you for coming to my Ted talk ha.