Author details AI‑written scam 'fan mail' and consequences of replying
You're getting those book club scam emails too? It's so much darker than you might have thought. Read through to the final paragraph.
Some Guy in Kent7I know the article is author specific - and I’ve seen more than one author on here mention those I’d argue it’s a golden age for scammers across the board though - I’m getting these daily. Format, spelling, rendering, etc, is all pretty good. None of the previous ‘easy tells’ of old
enactivistagent.bsky.social4the sinuous long tail of #AI enabled identity scams—simulacrum noir
Adam Welz1I've been getting these, some even to my not-public email address. Many are superficially convincing; the scammers have obviously run my book and various reviews, related websites etc. through their models.
Adam Rutherford13I get 5 a week. Including lit agents too. And foreign language versions: ‘we’ve noticed that you book Breve Historia De Todos Los Que Han Vivido is not ranking high on Amazon.’
Alom Shaha11“the idea that AI companies might go out of their way to halt the criminal misuse of their technology seems just as doubtful – and for exactly the same reason [as the scammers]. It’s making them fantastically rich.”
Violet Blue®11I got an author scam email this weekend that was a freakishly accurate, highly empathetic, long litany of praise for A Fish Has No Word For Water -- but almost all of it in my own words, lifted from the book and its blurbs. Obviously fake but meant to feel very personal, like my book was a lifeline.
Ed Granter9Once again, as an author, I am OUTRAGED that I get absolutely zero attempts to scam me
BOB from the Future/Library5Why I stopped trying to waste spammers time. Block & Report don't yell. "On the other side of the screen, there is someone frightened and far from home, sitting in a sound-insulated booth with a dozen phones splayed out on their desk – while behind them their manager walks by, a taser at his hip."
Björn Heile5I got those too. They are quite sophisticated, but I didn't know they were quite as malicious as that! Be on your guard. Remember: any account of people getting excited about academic books should be treated with suspicion!
Der grüne Gaumen3Finde es nur fair: Wenn KI schon Deine Bücher liest, dann ist es doch nett, wenn sie Dir auch Fanpost schickt.
Matthew Sullivan2“The idea that AI companies might go out of their way to halt the criminal misuse of their technology seems just as doubtful – and for exactly the same reason. It’s making them fantastically rich.”
"Last year, authorities raided a facility in Bamban, north of Manila, freeing nearly 700 people who had been trapped there and forced to work as scammers." Poor sods. Those fake book club mails you keep getting? They're part of a massive industry.
Katie Mack17The whole thing is just so gross from every angle
𝗘𝗩𝗜𝗟 𝗗𝗘𝗔𝗗 𝗩𝗘𝗥𝗡13I was wondering about the nice email I got asking for permission for a book club to feature my obscure out of print movie review collection 'Yippee Ki Yay, Moviegoer!' I knew it had to be fake but didn't know what the scam was.
Ladygeeke (Jí Kè 极客妇人)10The Chinese film "No More Bets" is a sobering story of how these operations ruin lives - the lives of the captive workers, their marks, and all the families affected by financial ruin.
BillieB333The scam emails are annoying, but the truth behind them is heartbreaking.
Matthew Dow Smith166This is just so awful on so many different levels. And it only reinforces my increasing belief that generative "AI" is destroying our perceived reality and if we're going to survive as a society, it has be banned and any trace of it has to be found and removed.
Rabbi Danya Ruttenberg112Holy fuck. I've been getting a bunch of this but I had not thought through the labor exploitation factor (though of course of course of course of fucking course)
John Wiswell49I get a ton of fake book club spam, but this is the first time it's made me sick.
Shane M. Bailey11This is why i don't agree with people that abuse people that call or email scams like this. A lot of them are trapped. Don't fall for the scams, but don't abuse them either.
𝕵𝖔𝖗𝖉𝖆𝖓 𝕬𝖈𝖔𝖘𝖙𝖆9“[I]t resembled a call centre and a prison, rows upon rows of computers and green screens, and tiny dorms with bunk beds… The bosses, meanwhile, splashed around in the swimming pool next door. When another compound was raided, they found it had its own brothel, karaoke suite and torture room.”
Anna Orridge9Jfc. I got one of those, just this morning. I know they were bad but...
Philip Sewell9The cases in this article seem like the tip of the iceberg of *AI* being intertwined with human trafficking/slavery.
Norb Aikin6So, #WritingCommunity, we all know the first part of the story. But behind the curtain? Holy yikes!! Worth a read. #Authors #BookSky
Gregory A. Wilson6Now, if @theguardian.com could just take that one teensy tiny extra step to consider why it's in bed with OpenAI, the products of which are supercharging slave camps across the globe, we'd be making some progress!
Is anyone else getting a lot of emails like this, asking if you'd be willing to license company data for training AI models? Not sure if it's a scam, or a genuine offer. Either way it's a scam.
Eliot Higgins46Literally got another email about it as I was writing that posting.
Doctora Malka Older14at Global Voices we've been getting a ton, like really a lot, of "hi! i've just started a new website doing [something that already exists], can I use your articles, totally respectfully I promise?" and we're creative commons license so yea i guess but there sure is a lot of vibe coding happening!
Roope Kaaronen5Love the audacity of this. "Quick question -- [multi-million dollar proposal] -- would that sit with you?".
elia ayoub4I got them for The Fire These Times a few times
EnterTheNafo 🇸🇪🇬🇧🇺🇦1Yep, our company recently received a similar post stating data is bought at a $20k starting price. We won’t be selling any data 😀
Geoff Harcourt1In droves and they all started very suddenly.
