What it is
Artificial Intelligence (AI) is technology that's designed to do things that normally require human intelligence, like recognising patterns and speech, visual perception and decision making.
'Generative AI' is a type of AI that can create new content and complete tasks without much guidance from humans. These types of AI systems can create anything from professional papers to works of fiction and even live chat conversations. Currently the most popular example of this is ChatGPT.
These systems are being used by many different industries – including scammers.
The risks
Generative AI can create very realistic scams very fast. This means that scams are getting harder to spot at the same time as they're becoming more frequent.
More realistic phishing scripts
AI can now create more realistic phishing scripts in multiple languages.
Phishing scams and your business
Generating fake profiles and conversations
Generative AI tools can create descriptive content, create images and even conduct live chat that feels like talking to a real person. This makes it easier for scammers to create the type of fake profiles used in:
- investment scams
- romance scams.
How to spot an investment scam – Financial Markets Authority
Romance scams – Netsafe
Scams in languages other than English
AI doesn’t just help edit English, it can work across many languages. This means speakers of regional languages, who may not usually encounter scams, are now potential targets.
CERT NZ is aware of scams occurring in te reo Māori. It’s unclear if these were created using AI, but the threat of that happening is increasing.