AI Scammers Can Outperform Humans at Building Trust, Study Finds

A new study from researchers at four universities tested whether AI chatbots could replace human scammers in the early stages of “pig butchering” fraud, a romance-based scam that leads to fake crypto investments. In simulations, the AI successfully impersonated a human during trust-building conversations and, by some measures, outperformed real human scammers.

This stage is typically the longest part of real-world scams, often lasting months. The findings suggest AI could carry out much of the deceptive groundwork more effectively than people.