AI ‘girlfriend’ scams man out of $27,000 after getting into ‘long-distance relationship’
This is just one of many AI-based relationship scams
One man has had the unfortunate reality of finding out that his supposed ‘long-distance’ girlfriend was simply just an AI chatbot, and to make matters worse it scammed him out of roughly $27,000.
Recent years have seen AI-based dating technology rocket in popularity, with popular internet figures like the Hawk Tuah girl creating their own AI dating apps, and ‘dystopian’ humanoid robot girlfriends that are powered by artificial intelligence technology.
While most instances of AI dating are largely harmless, if not a nightmarish in some cases, there have also been an increase in reports that scammers are now utilizing similar tech in order to extort money out of innocent individuals.
AI-based romance scams are becoming more prevalent over the years (Getty Stock)
There are ways that you can tell that you’re speaking to an AI as opposed to a real person, but with the rapid advancements in associated tech it’s becoming harder and harder for even tech-savvy individually to stay clued in – especially when wearing the rose-tinted glasses of love.
Most famous of these instances involved a woman who was scammed out of roughly $850,000 after falling in love with an AI-generated imitation of Brad Pitt, and recent reports from China indicate that a similar situation has occurred once more.
As per the Independent, a Chinese man identified as ‘Mr. Liu’ realized that what he thought was his long-distance girlfriend was actually an AI creation, and this unfortunately came to light after he’d sent over 200,000 yuan, which is roughly $27,000.
Liu began interacting with a so-called Ms. Jiao, who had sent him pictures and videos online, but all of the media that he’d received was created by a team of scammers through generative AI or combined images.
Jiao then began sending fake medical bills, requesting the financial assistance of Mr. Liu, on top of requests that he help her fund a business of her own.
The group of scammers obtained 200,000 yuan from Mr. Liu through fake medical bills and business expenses (Getty Stock)
Police explained that Liu had never met Ms. Jiao throughout the time that they had been talking, believing the pictures and videos to be enough ‘proof’ that she was indeed who she said she was – never mind her not even existing in the first place.
Catfishing – the practice of pretending to be someone else online, specifically within romantic contexts – is certainly nothing new, and has been an ongoing practice for almost as long as the internet has been a thing.
However, with advancements in AI it’s only natural that catfishing efforts would become more complex and challenging to decipher.
It has become a perfect hunting ground for bad actors to take advantage of vulnerable people, especially as romance often leaves people more willing to part with money, and experts continue to warn against fake relationships, encouraging people to practice caution when dating online.Featured Image Credit: Yuichiro Chino / Getty
Published 10:33 28 Jan 2025 GMT
Donald Trump eerily warns AI startup DeepSeek should be ‘wakeup call’ for America’s AI industry
Over $1 trillion has already been wiped off the US tech industry
As the President of the United States, Donald Trump is one of the most powerful men in the world.
No matter your political allegiances or what you think of the former host of The Apprentice, his return to the White House puts him in a position of power where everyone is paying attention to him.
Now, the POTUS has warned about the emergence of China’s DeepSeek AI and what it could mean for the future of artificial intelligence.
Despite being the oldest President ever to serve, Trump has shown himself to be unexpectedly tech-savvy.
He might’ve had early reservations about cryptocurrency and tried to ban TikTok in his first term, but now he’s back to ordering Diet Coke at the press of the button, he’s paving the way for a tech-first America.
Alongside being heralded as the ‘savior’ of TikTok, Trump released his own meme coin just days before returning to office.
President Trump warns that DeepSeek is one to watch ( Bloomberg / Contributor / Getty)
Everyone likes to save a dollar here and there, so with China offering its own low-cost alternative to America’s AI, Trump has warned it should be a ‘wakeup call’ for The Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave.
DeepSeek is a Chinese startup that spectacularly claims its R1 model has power similar to Sam Altman’s OpenAI.
Although OpenAI is said to currently lag behind ChatGPT and Google’s Gemini in terms of power, DeepSeek’s ability to undercut its American cousins has already led to a market crash.
Chip maker Nvidia recorded a record-breaking one-day loss on Wall Street – having just wiped $600 billion off its market value.
Instead of being worried about this historic slump, President Trump sees this as the kick up the backside Silicon Valley could need. Speaking in Florida, Trump said: “The release of DeepSeek, AI from a Chinese company should be a wakeup call for our industries that we need to be laser-focused on competing to win.”
Highlighting how DeepSeek can be cheaper because it uses less processing power, he added: “I view that as a positive, as an asset… you won’t be spending as much, and you’ll get the same result, hopefully.”
Still, DeepSeek has already taken the crown as the USA’s most downloaded free app in just a week since it was launched.
·
deepseek’s r1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price. we will obviously deliver much better models and also it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor! we will pull up some releases.
DeepSeek is powered by the open source DeepSeek-V3 model, with claims it was trained for around $6 million. This is something that others will dispute, but either way, it looks like it cost a fraction of its US counterparts.
These are sure to be worrying times for the AI industry, especially after Trump gathered the likes of Altman to launch his $500 billion Stargate project that’s focused on AI.
Across the board, Mark Zuckerberg‘s Meta platforms, Microsoft, and Alphabet joined Nvidia by taking a hit to their market values. With fears that the past two years of an AI frenzy have led to overinflated market values, analysts recorded a combined US tech loss of well over $1 trillion in a single day.
We’re already seeing DeepSeek’s potential positives. Altman posted on X and congratulated his AI rival but promised OpenAI would do better: “DeepSeek’s r1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price.
“We will obviously deliver much better models and also it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor! we will pull up some releases.”Featured Image Credit: Justin Sullivan / Staff / Getty
ChinaAI
Published 10:01 24 Feb 2025 GMT
Microsoft CEO makes shock admission about AI after investing $12,000,000,000 in OpenAI
The tech mogul was surprisingly critical of AI advancements
Rikki Loftus
The CEO of Microsoft has made a shocking admission about AI after investing $12 billion in a tech company.
Satya Nadella, who has the top job at Microsoft, spent the billions of dollars investing in OpenAI.
However, the tech mogul appeared on a podcast where he seemed surprisingly critical of AI.
The Microsoft CEO has spoken out about AI advancements (Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg via Getty Images)
During an interview on Dwarkesh Patel’s podcast, Nadella said: “Us self-claiming some [artificial general intelligence] milestone, that’s just nonsensical benchmark hacking to me.”
The CEO made the point that when assessing the value of AI, we should be looking at how it impacts us in the real world rather than focusing on advancements like artificial general intelligence (AGI).
He continued: “So, the first thing that we all have to do is, when we say this is like the Industrial Revolution, let’s have that Industrial Revolution type of growth.”
Nadella went on to add: “The real benchmark is: the world growing at 10%. Suddenly productivity goes up and the economy is growing at a faster rate. When that happens, we’ll be fine as an industry.”
Despite AGI becoming OpenAI’s main priority, Nadella claimed that it hasn’t actually generated much value to the economy.
That hasn’t stopped major tech firms, including Microsoft, investing a lot of money into AI, with many developing their own systems.
_.webp)
_.webp)
President Trump’s Stargate project hopes to push for AI advancement in the US (Andrew Harnik/Getty Images)
Chinese AI startup DeepSeek shocked the industry in recent weeks after unveiling a new AI model that is a lot cheaper to operate than OpenAI’s ChatGPT.
This news caused the stock market to drop by over $1 trillion.
OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman responded to the drop on social media.
Posting on X, formerly Twitter, he wrote: “DeepSeek’s R1 is an impressive model, particularly around what they’re able to deliver for the price. We will obviously deliver much better models and also it’s legit invigorating to have a new competitor! We will pull up some releases.”
DeepSeek is powered by the open source DeepSeek-V3 model, with claims it was trained for around $6 million, a fraction the cost of its US counterparts.
President Donald Trump has declared that this should be a ‘wakeup call’ for the American AI industry, arguing that they should now be ‘laser-focused on competing to win’ in light of DeepSeek’s almost revolutionary developments.
Trump recently gathered the likes of Altman’s OpenAI, SoftBank and Oracle to launch his $500 billion Stargate project that is focused on the advancement of AI.
The project, where the group intends to build data centers, is expected to ‘instantly’ create 100,000 American jobs and could even create personalized cancer vaccinations in the future.
Microsoft also recently signed on to take part in the project.Featured Image Credit: Dimas Ardian/Bloomberg via Getty Images
MicrosoftAITech NewsNewsChatGPT
Published 14:41 26 Feb 2025 GMT
Officials identify hacker who projected disturbing NSFW AI images of Musk and Trump in government building and threaten legal action
The images involved President Trump and DOGE-lead Elon Musk
Harry Boulton
Officials have formally identified the hacker who displayed an AI-generated video of US President Donald Trump and Elon Musk on TVs within the Department of Housing and Urban Development, claiming that the perpetrator was ‘escorted off the property’.
Elon Musk’s close relationship with now-president Donald Trump has been well publicized since the richest man in the world joined the campaign trail months prior to the election last November.
Their bond is so strong that even Musk’s own mother has commented on it, and the Tesla CEO proudly labeled himself ‘First Buddy’ and declared love for the president on his social media platforms.
On the flip side, some have taken this relationship to be weighted in Musk’s favor – especially after he seemingly strong-armed Trump into pushing an amended budget just before the end of 2024, leading some to coin the term ‘President Musk’.
One individual has decided to interpret this relationship in their own way, however, as a ‘disturbing’ AI-generated video of Trump kissing and caressing Musk’s toes was displayed on televisions inside the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) canteen on Monday, as first reported by Rachel Cohen of Vox.
·
WOW! This actually just happened! The Monitors were just hacked at the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) to display an AI video of Trump licking Elon Musk’s toes. The caption over it read: “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING.”
The video, believed to be created and displayed by a hacker, had the text “LONG LIVE THE REAL KING” placed over the video, indicating that the creator believed that Musk holds the ‘true’ power in the current administration.
As per the New York Post, police officials have now identified the individual that distributed the video to the HUD screens, with a representative from the Department outlining:
“Yesterday, an individual was escorted off the property. Legal ramifications are being explored. Additionally, termination, or suspension of certain services are being explored as it relates to the department.”
It’s unclear who the perpetrator is, whether they were employed by the Department, and how they managed to infiltrate the displays, but many on social media have their own wild theories.
“A disgruntled ex employee, I bet,” indicates one user in response to the video, and this particular hypothesis seems to carry weight with many considering DOGE’s targeting of federal services including Housing and Urban Development.
It’s indicated that the Department of Government Efficiency has recovered $1,900,000,000 of ‘misplaced’ HUD money during the Biden administration, illustrating that these funds were ‘no longer needed’.
Glad to see my image has been put to good use – x.com/sirDukeDevin/s…
Devin Duke
@sirDukeDevin
Grok really is going off after Trump caved to Elon on H-1B Visas. 😂
Social media strategist Devin Duke appears to have been the source of the original image, having created it – ironically – using Elon Musk’s AI tool Grok in December 2024.
The subsequent video must then have been animated using this image as a source, but it’s not clear whether the hacker was the one that created the video or whether they simply lifted it from another source and distributed it within the Department.Featured Image Credit: Brandon Bell / Staff / Getty
Published 10:59 26 Feb 2025 GMT
Elon Musk is quietly building a data center filled with $700,000,000 worth of AI equipment to rival OpenAI
The billionaire has claimed it is the largest data center in the world
Rikki Loftus
It looks like the AI race continues as it has been revealed that Elon Musk is quietly building a data center filled with $700 million worth of AI equipment.
It’s an operation big enough to rival OpenAI as Musk’s own startup xAI is expanding with a data center in Memphis, Tennessee.
xAI is planning to run the center along with X, formerly Twitter, with the two firms combining its hardware.
Elon Musk is building a major data center for his AI startup (VINCENT FEURAY/Hans Lucas/AFP via Getty Images)
The project has been nicknamed Colossus and Musk has claimed it is the largest data center in the world.
The Tesla boss’ AI startup has made a request to the Tennessee Valley Authority for the facility to be provided with 150 megawatts of power.
xAI debuted its own chatbot called Grok on X, with the first version being previewed in November 2023.
Early access to Grok was given to pay X Premium users and it was later revealed that the AI bot would be available exclusively to people who were paying for the higher tier of the Twitter subscription service.
The latest version of the AI, Grok-3, was released earlier this month on February 17.
According to Musk, this version is trained with ‘10x’ more computing power than the previous model.
Hundreds of data annotators have also been purchased to train the chatbot.
The billionaire hopes to use his new data center to put xAI in the position as a competitor that can stand against tech giants like Google and OpenAI.
The billionaire hopes xAI will be able to rival OpenAI (DOMINIC GWINN/Middle East Images/AFP via Getty Images)
Musk recently offered OpenAI co-founder Sam Altman $97.4 billion to buy the company, which was met with a flat ‘no’.
On X, Altman wrote: “No thank you but we will buy twitter for $9.74 billion if you want.”
Musk, who bought Twitter back in 2022 for $44 billion, was quick to fire back, calling Altman a ‘swindler’.
There certainly doesn’t appear to be any love lost between the two billionaires as last year, Musk also sued both OpenAI and Altman.
In the lawsuit, Musk accused them of going back on promises to develop AI carefully and make it freely available.
He also claimed that they were breaching a contract by making the move towards profit.
The request by Musk for a court order to block OpenAI from becoming a for-profit company has not yet been ruled on by a judge.
However, US district judge Yvonne Gonzalez Rogers has said that she would not block the case from going to a jury trial.
