The recent research done by a group of teachers and students at Indiana University revealed that over 1,000 AI-powered fake accounts are on X (formerly Twitter), named the ‘Fox8’ botnet. These accounts fabricate information and steal selfies to create profiles to promote fake cryptocurrency. Not only this, but to interact like real humans they use AI-powered language models to impersonate humans.
All the content used for prevarication was generated using AI-powered language models like ChatGPT. The research also states that these accounts were created to mislead people into investing in fake cryptocurrencies. One of the researchers stated:
“With the advent and availability of free AI APIs [application programming interfaces] like ChatGPT, we wanted to see if these tools are already being exploited to fool people. And it turns out they are, sadly but not surprisingly.”
Further, these accounts use hashtags like #bitcoin to fake themselves as human realistically and target human-operated accounts to hook them into this fraud. Some speculations also say that this AI-powered account might also have extorted money from the crypto wallets of people.
Also Read – Elon Musk’s X Now Prohibits Advertisers From Promoting Their Accounts.
The platform is full of posts generated by Artificial Intelligence which is deceptive. The bot is spreading fabricated information on political matters, public health issues, Etc,. The motive behind this is to make people believe in them and get them to click on links provided to get you into this scam.
What is X’s AI-driven Threat update all about ?
The fabricated accounts were not disclosed by the researchers but they did mention that X was not very receptive to this research but did take down all the bot accounts after it was made public.
The researchers also showed concern that this might only be the beginning of the AI-threatening scams and mentioned that better measures should be taken to detect AI-powered content for the betterment of mankind.
Aanchal is a family-oriented person who loves to spend time with her family. Her reserved demeanour allows her to reflect deeply on her thoughts and make well-thought-out decisions. She profoundly loves diplomatic studies and wishes to explore more about diverse cultures and languages worldwide. In her spare time, she reads or writes poetry prompts in her journal.
Aanchal Das