4 popular AI Scams in 2024 and how to avoid them

Before Artificial Intelligence became a major part of daily life, people fell victim to various scams. Now, AI-powered scams are emerging and becoming increasingly prevalent. This article explores 4 AI scams in 2024 that you need to be aware of, along with tips on how to avoid them.

A scam is essentially a fraudulent deal or an activity that deceives someone into doing something they would not have done if they knew the details.

Scammers use various tactics to make their victims believe the information they provide, ensuring that the unsuspecting individuals remain unaware of the true details.

Such an activity certainly requires a lot of thinking and strategy, and with how powerful AI is – being able to do virtually anything, from generating fake videos to cloning voices – these scammers have been quick to adopt the technology in their bad deeds, and that spells danger for a lot of people.

What are AI scams?

Fraudulent actions carried out by persons using artificial intelligence are known as AI scams. This means that they use AI to develop videos, texts, and images that they can easily use to take advantage of unsuspecting people.

4 AI scams in 2024

Since AI scams have been noticeably common in 2024, it is essential to know some of them if you wish to protect yourself online.

A lot of people have fallen for various kinds of scams, even before scammers started to use AI for their activities. Some of the most popular AI scams in 2024 include:

Deepfake scams

Before AI, deepfake technology had been in operation. People have long created false images, voices or videos of other people which they then used for their nefarious activities online.

Scammers who used deepfake technology for their activities were increasingly finding it difficult to succeed as more and more people could easily spot a fake video, voice or image of another person, deservedly putting these miscreants out of jobs.

Today, AI has changed things, as these scammers can use Artificial Intelligence to give an accurate portrayal of someone online.

Deepfake technology is being used by scammers in a wide range of ways today, from celebrity lookalikes selling fictitious products to close friends asking for money or other things from their unsuspecting friends.

Voice cloning scams

This is one of the AI scams to avoid in 2024 and beyond. Voice cloning, perhaps the most popular and dangerous, is a common method for scamming people out of their money or valuable information, much like deepfake videos.

With this technique, scammers imitate the voice of someone you know, usually a loved one whose voice you are quite familiar with. This is something that AI can frighteningly do a good job at these days.

When AI is used to clone a person’s voice, and you listen to it, it becomes almost impossible to doubt that they are the ones speaking, and anyone can easily fall for it–although a few people are able to identify a voice that has been cloned with the help of AI.

Phishing scams

Phishing scams are not new; they have long been an issue on the internet. Hackers and scammers use fake emails to try to obtain personal or financial information from unsuspecting people, normally posing as companies or institutions for which people work or have some other engagements.

Very observant people can easily spot a phishing email, with notable clues being spelling errors and other basic things that are normally incorrect.

With AI, though, some of these basic errors are not committed, making them look credible.

AI platforms have made it easier to create more phishing emails that are seemingly legitimate and many people fall for these messages, making phishing scams one of the most dangerous AI scams and one to avoid in the modern era.

Listing scams

Listing scams are nothing new, just like some of the other scams discussed, but AI has allowed fraudsters to create them on a never-before-seen scale and at a great pace.

It’s a numbers game, similar to other frauds, and all it takes is one respondent, or a few of them to make it profitable.

Everything – from vehicles to houses to electronics and fake jobs – is vulnerable to listing fraud. Because AI text summaries can be so convincing, creating fake listings is now simple.

Fraudsters fabricate authentic advertisements for real estate, typically situated in coveted neighbourhoods at attractive rates.

They will then demand payment in advance, which may be a deposit or several months’ worth of rent.

A lot of people normally fall for this type of fraud as scammers can use artificial intelligence (AI) to create documents that seem authentic, leading victims to believe the transactions they have engaged in with these scammers, are real.

In addition to money, they could ask for personal details, which would jeopardize the victims’ data.

Having discussed all these AI scams in 2024, one thing is left to do: how to avoid them.

There is no denying that all of these AI-powered scams are very dangerous, and getting to know them means that you have one foot forward.

You cannot find a solution to a problem you know nothing about, so it’s good the problems have been identified.

How to Avoid AI Scams

These AI scams must be avoided at all costs, and usually, it takes doing very simple things to avoid being scammed. Some people are so quick to act on the information they receive without authenticating the information.

For all of the AI scams covered on this list, the three strategies below can go a long way to help you avoid getting scammed:

1. Always confirm. Whether it’s voice cloning or deepfake, figure out how to verify the source of the information you received. You may do yourself a lot of good by simply doing a quick Google search or giving a loved one a call.
2. Be careful what you post. Scammers frequently utilize social media data to build algorithms on people’s voices or to target those who are gullible and will take just anything without doing any research to find the truth about things they have been told. People’s social media activities have often been used against them by scammers who will go any length to anyone they see to be easily fooled.
3. Report the scam. This may most likely be after you have fallen for a scam, but when you have successfully escaped a scam, it may help to report it. Even if reporting the fraud to the appropriate authorities won’t guarantee that you won’t fall for it again, no matter how much AI is used, you can ensure that future attempts will fail, and your close pals will be on their guard also.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) was created to simplify life for humanity, but its misuse by individuals with harmful intentions can make it very dangerous. Staying vigilant is crucial to avoid falling victim to AI scams.