The excellent Data & Society pulled together a report on the impact of generative AI on scamming. (No surprise: not good.) Its conclusion makes an interesting comparison to the once-pressing scourge of spam:
“Though it once threatened to make email unusable, spam was largely tamed through the development of increasingly sophisticated email filters, regulation like the CAN-SPAM act, and email users becoming more adept at recognizing and managing unsolicited messages. ... This success did not come from eliminating spam altogether, but from mitigating its impact so effectively that it became a manageable nuisance rather than a disruptive force, through a mix of technical advancements, regulation, and education. As we turn our attention to the growing threat of AI-enhanced scams, the question becomes: What would a comparable success story look like?”
