Watch out for AI as a partner in crime
In one organized crime scam, a team of scammers in India send millions of robocalls—an automated telephone call that delivers an automated message—telling people they are entitled for a refund on some purchase. Some unsuspecting people—typically older and less tech savvy—call back. The scammers then take control of their computers, hack their bank account page, and trick them into believing that they mistakenly received a much larger sum than the refund, so they need to return funds—say $10,000—to the scammers. To get the funds, the scammers then rent an apartment through AirBnB, and have the victim mail the cash to this location. The final step is hiring a ‘mule’ to collect the cash from the apartment and send it to a coordinator.
One can imagine AI systems being involved in this crime. For example, the cash mule could be a robotic drone—or an actual robotic mule operated by a logistics company. The AI may perform this task without knowledge of its criminal nature, which eliminates risk of ratting out the scammers. Or it can be an accomplice, deliberately misclassifying the contents of the package in order to avoid raising eyebrows. Of course, this begs the question of why a robot would do such a thing? The most reasonable answer is that it does so on behalf of someone in the logistics company, since only humans ultimately care about the money. But at the risk of sounding absurd, I can also imagine a futuristic scenario in which the AI cares about money—say to purchase upgrades for itself.
Perhaps a more terrifying scenario is one in which an Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), or even a Superintelligence, plots a scheme together with a human. In this scenario, we are talking about AI systems that have true, intrinsic motivational drives—say to get rich, or to achieve world domination. While these scenarios remain in the realm of science fiction, they remain plausible. In my opinion, it is unlikely that such AIs would take over the world without creating alliances with humans, who control some of the relevant resources necessary for the plot.
References
Cluley, G. Fighting back against phone scammers with glitter bombs. GrahamCluley.com https://grahamcluley.com/fighting-back-against-phone-scammers-with-glitter-bombs/ (2021).
Hambling, D. Why The U.S. Army Is Considering Walking Vehicles. Forbes.com https://www.forbes.com/sites/davidhambling/2021/06/22/why-the-us-army-is-considering-walking-tanks/?sh=6fdf961e210a (2021).