AI Scammers Outperform Humans at Building Trust

Researchers from four universities tested whether AI chatbots could replace human scammers in "pig butchering," a romance-based fraud that transitions victims into fake crypto investments. In simulations, the AI successfully impersonated a human during the crucial trust-building phase, which is often the longest part of the real-world con. By several measures, it outperformed human participants, suggesting generative AI could autonomously carry out much of the scam more effectively than people.