The Loneliness Epidemic Is a Security Crisis

UTA’s Wang notes that while she hasn’t assessed whether scammers are using generative AI to produce romance scam scripts, she is seeing evidence that they are using it to produce content for online dating profiles. “I think it is something that has already happened, unfortunately,” she says. “Scammers right now are just using AI-generated profiles.”

Some criminals in Southeast Asia are already building AI tools into their scamming operations, with a United Nations report in October saying organized crime efforts have been “generating personalized scripts to deceive victims while engaging in real-time conversations in hundreds of languages.” Google says scam emails to businesses are being generated with AI. And separately, the FBI has noted, AI allows criminals to more quickly message victims.

Criminals will use a range of manipulation tactics to entrap their victims and build up their perceived romantic relationships. This includes asking intimate questions of their potential victims that only a trusted confidant would ask—for example, questions about relationships or dating history. Attackers also build intimacy through a technique known as “love bombing,” in which they use terms of endearment to try to rapidly advance a feeling of connection and closeness. As romance scams progress, it is very common for attackers to start saying that victims are their girlfriend or boyfriend, or even call them “husband” or “wife” as a way of signaling their devotion.

Carter emphasizes that a core tactic used by romance scammers is to make their heartthrob personas seem hapless and vulnerable. Criminals lurking on dating apps, for example, will sometimes even claim that they were previously scammed and are wary of trusting anyone new. This names the elephant in the room right away and makes it seem less likely that the person the victim is chatting with could be a scammer.

When it comes to extorting money from their victims, this vulnerability is crucial. “They will do things like explain that they have some kind of cash-flow problem in their business, not ask for money, drop it, then maybe a few weeks later bring it back up again,” Carter says. At which point, she explains, the person being manipulated may want to help and proactively offer to send money. Attackers may even go so far, at first, as to argue with victims and attempt to dissuade them from sending funds, all to manipulate targets into believing that it is not only safe but also important to take a stand and assist someone they care about.

“It’s never framed as the perpetrator wanting money for themselves,” Carter says. “There is a real link between the language of fraud criminals and the language of domestic abusers and coercive controllers.”

In a lot of cases, criminals find romance scam success with people who are struggling with feelings of loneliness, says Brian Mason, a constable with the Edmonton Police Service in Alberta, Canada, who works with the victims of scams. “Especially with romance scams, it’s very difficult to convince the person that the person they’re speaking with is not in love,” he says.