The Hucksters & Scammers of Artificial Intelligence
If you’re on Twitter (uhm, X), TikTok, Instagram and any of these platforms, you’ve no doubt seen the posts exclaiming in fabulous, glorious, amazing hyperbole just how many incredible, groundbreaking, game-changing, enchanting and pick-your-superlative, ways AI changed the entire world in 30 seconds just, well, right this very second.
Did you know that hundreds of thousands of teenagers are making $50,000 a month from chatbots and AI tools? That you too, can make millions by using these free tools? That if you learn how to write a prompt you’ll only have to work two minutes a week? You can design, launch and make $2 million from a website in 30 minutes? It’s all true. Just pay me $20 for my cheat sheet and you too will unlock the secrets to eternal wealth and happiness.
These hustles and scams are nothing new. In fact, the very nature of them goes back nearly 200 years to the 1800’s. Snake oil salesmen. The term snake oil survives to this day so profound was its cultural impact. You can read the fascinating history of snake oil here. Scams, frauds and such have been an aspect of human societies for many thousands of years. Probably even going back to our hunter-gatherer phase.
Print newspaper classifieds were long filled with all kinds of nefarious schemes. All you had to do was send a money order or cash…
