SpaceX, Crypto Scams & the Importance of Staying Vigilant in the AI Era.

Cruz, my son, was excited to watch the SpaceX launch last night so we pulled up the live YouTube video, or so we thought. It seemed to be from SpaceX (had their logo) and showed it was live with over 8M channel subscribers and over 100,000 people watching live. Red flags went off immediately as it was a video of Elon Musk informing people that he was doing a campaign to popularize Crypto and to send Crypto using a QR code and within 5 mins you’ll get double back. While I wasn’t a sucker, I’m sure many people were. Turns out the URL for the profile has an extra “A” or something SpaaceX. Someone clearly put some serious time into it to have that many subscribers and tons of space related videos.

Remember, AI is a tool and can be great, but we all need to be very careful as voices can easily be cloned and used for malicious purposes.

Imagine a loved one calling you or receiving a video of a loved one saying they’ve been kidnapped and to send money. You think it’s real and send it. Lindsay and I discussed this and she proposed that we need to have a family code word, which is a great idea to know just in case. It’s a shame that we need to deal with challenges and issues like this, but as technology advances people become more efficient whether you’re an entrepreneur, or criminal. Be smart out there everyone! The Deep Fakes will only get better.

For the first in history, seeing it “live” with your own eyes and hearing it with your own ears doesn’t mean it’s real. I suspect this will be an ongoing issue especially with the upcoming Presidential Race.

A couple weeks ago I wrote a blog post on AI opportunities & threats if you care to read more about it, here is the link.