When we talk about AI nowadays, we’re mostly thinking about generative AI producing text, images, and videos of various qualities. And while AI slop is certainly an issue for end consumers and the unwary user, what is underreported is that the same types of technology are used in AI spam. Lately, we’ve helped our clients deal with the next generation of spam bots that are invading their websites. Learn more and protect your site.
First, Let’s Talk About Generative AI
AI is a pretty broad brush nowadays to paint with—every app under the sun has some sort of “AI-integration.” Generally speaking, the consumer-oriented AI is Generative AI, such as ChatGPT. This AI is trained on text, images, video, etc., to learn underlying patterns and structures, and then uses this alongside user prompts to create the most statistically likely thing you want. Typically, these AIs are trained on massive amounts of data, known as Large Language Models (LLMs), to make them as accurate as possible when responding to prompts.
Ways AI is Being Used in Spam & Fraud
Generative AI is often used in spam and fraud to create content for users or bots to help bypass automated or user scrutiny and get you to use their false service, or to impersonate officials from inside or outside your company.
- Form Spam: Form spam is nothing new for most websites, but the volume and quality of these leads are increasing. What used to be badly written copy needs to be scrutinized before determining it’s fake, taking up valuable time.
- Defeating Captcha: Most websites use Captcha or similar protections to prevent form spam by bots, but it’s getting harder. AI-powered spam bots are starting to defeat Captcha, causing a new arms race in website protection.
- Writing Better Emails: With the help of generative AI, emails written by non-English speakers and bots sound more organic and are better formatted than ever, making them less likely to hit spam filters and be automatically dismissed.
- Sending Better Messages: You may get messages on social media channels for your company from people posing as individuals, organizations, or the social media platform itself—if you’re on Facebook, you’ve probably already seen this.
- Making Realistic Images/Videos: And it’s not just text, AI-created images and videos can supplement emails and messages, and help impersonate individuals and organizations.
What You Can Do to Protect Yourself
So, AI is a tool scammers and their bots use to reach your website, inbox, and messaging apps, waste your time, and potentially take your money. What should you do? First, you need to do your research when a suspicious form, email, or message comes your way (including looking at your website analytics). Second, protecting your website means working with your host and web designer to ensure it is regularly reviewed and updated. If your current website doesn’t have security or web maintenance included, you’ve got a critical issue you need to address now.
All these issues are why it pays to work with an agency that combines managed website and marketing, so you’re protected on both fronts and generating valuable leads. Vision is just such a company, working with you from top-level business and marketing strategy down to the nuts and bolts of managing your website, social media, and more. Contact us today to learn more about our services and to get started.
