Jamie Bennet
Artificial intelligence-driven scams could defraud up to $100 billion from older adults in the next 18 months unless action is taken to educate such victims about the risks of the technology, Haywood Talcove, CEO of the government group at LexisNexis Risk Solutions told MarketWatch.
He warned that romance scams, ransomware and fake government agency notifications about personal debt are the most common forms of deception toward consumers, with the vast majority being the elderly.
Talcove stated that despite efforts to regulate AI, it is up to the public to catch up to the technology and recognize how powerful and dangerous it is.
“You have all of these people building this technology for good and they’re working really, really hard. And you have another group working equally hard at applying their craft on the bad side,” said Talcove, previous recipient of the Wash100 award. “It’s going to take a while for people to become aware of something like ChatGPT. It’s going to take a while for people to get caught up.”
AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, reported that financial elder exploitation reaches $28.3 billion a year, 72 percent of which are perpetrated by the victim’s family member, friend or caregiver. The nonprofit group, along with law enforcement officials and financial advisers, recommended that older people’s finances be co-managed by more than one person, with all family members kept in the loop to ensure transparency.
