The Nigerian Prince in the Age of AI

The third “Chinese Curse” is, “May you live in interesting times.” See the Wikipedia’s article about the Chinese curses. It’s not Chinese and it’s not even a curse. But it helps me to understand the confusion that we experience today. The times we live in are certainly “interesting”.

One of the biggest reasons is that our relationships with each other increasingly use machines – like I’m doing right now. Chimpanzees – our nearest relatives – don’t have this problem. Their relationships are always personal. Or at least they have been. Scientists have been teaching them how to use language and symbols. (Poor little guys!) KinesavaROCKS is entirely run through the web. I have only met a few of my customers in person after years of doing this.

It's been good for me! My entire career has focused on computers and software. For my entire career, I trusted machines. They never lied to me. In the very early days of computing and software, there wasn’t a problem. Back then, it seemed like everybody who was doing what I did was doing it for the same reason. We were simply in love with the technology. Some people love cars. Some people love rare stamps or gold. Back then, it seemed like we all loved the technology. When I first started using the Internet, my “service provider” was a phone number that connected to a computer at one of the four original ARPANET (the ancestor of the Internet) universities. If you knew the number, you were in. I didn’t even have to pay for it. There wasn’t any security.

Computers didn’t lie, but people do. Some sociologists believe that the most significant thing separating Homo sapiens from the other life forms on this planet is our exceptional ability to lie. The golden age I was privileged to experience didn’t last long. One of the first big lies to hit us was the “Nigerian Prince” scam. Not too many years ago, a big part of my email was offers from a Nigerian prince who needed an accomplice to get a huge windfall of stolen wealth out of his country. If you helped, you could share part of the stolen wealth. It didn't seem to matter that you would become part of a criminal conspiracy.

That scam always seemed pretty silly to me, but people fell for it anyway. The tragedy was that most of the people who were sucked in really didn’t have much money. When they bit hard on the bait, the Nigerian Prince took money they couldn’t afford. But the economics of the scam only worked if the Nigerian Prince could get at least a few thousand dollars from anyone who bought into it. The scammer had to send out many thousands of emails for each person who responded. If the scammer didn’t get a significant return on that one person, it wasn’t worth the effort.

In a way, that was a golden age too because scammers were pretty dumb back then. They have gained enormously in skill and sophistication today. Scams now are much harder to detect and avoid. Some that I receive fool me for a few minutes. It’s become a game for me to dig into a really clever scam and expose the flaws. I know it’s like teasing alligators because doing anything at all – other than deleting the email – is a risk. I follow a rule that it’s OK to use known and reliable sources of information as long as you never respond to the scam directly.

But times continue to get more interesting. AI – Artificial Intelligence – has suddenly moved from an academic curiosity to something we now see every day. The Nigerian Prince has moved upscale.

In the first version of this blog, I wrote, "We will soon see every day." It happened a lot faster than I expected. Even the software I use to create this website gives me AI capability if I want to use it. I don't. I enjoy writing and I'm not going to let a computer steal that pleasure from me.

One reason the scams from the Nigerian Prince used to be so easy to detect is that they had to be universal lies that could be sent out as massive email dumps. When I got an offer to share a million dollars, I knew immediately that the golden rule of scam detection applied: “If it’s too good to be true, it’s not true.” AI is making this rule obsolete. Now, a scammer doesn’t have to put personal effort into working the scam. Computers can do that too. AI allows the scammer to invent some general principles and the computer will write the messages. AI customization reduces the cost of the scam and makes it possible to profit from a smaller return from each person who falls into the trap. Thanks to AI, the scams are much less obvious. The computer has been taught how to lie.

Bringing this back to KinesavaROCKS, I have recently started to receive messages offering to sell me really great rocks. Fortunately – fortunately for me – I’m not in the market. My dad’s rocks are plenty for what I’m doing. I’ve even invented my own “stock” reply: “As the Jewish vampire said to Van Helsing as he held up a cross for protection, ‘Oy Vey! Have you got the wrong vampire.’ “ It’s still fun for me.

But other people are in the market. I can see where some of these offers might tempt people trying to get started in the rock business. Or maybe you’re in the stamp business and somebody has inherited an “Inverted Jenny” stamp and they need an accomplice to help sell it. Or you collect baseball cards … The possibilities are endless.

The real problem for me is that technology has now advanced to the point where KinesavaROCKS might look like a Nigerian Prince to other people. I give away a lot of rocks. But I always require people to pay for shipping. Right now, that’s nearly always $10.60 – the retail USPS fee for a flat rate padded envelope. I do that, in part, because I don’t want anybody to think my dad’s rocks are worthless. They’re El Primo "old stock" that you just can’t find on the desert now. And, in part, because people will take anything if it’s completely free. Then they will look at it and throw it away if it’s not “interesting” enough. Amazon is learning that lesson because they used to offer “free” shipping and returns. As a result, people interested in a pair of shoes will order each color in two or three sizes. They might then keep just one and send the rest back. Amazon is changing that now.

I still have a problem. I’m not sure how to tell people, “Hey! KinesavaROCKS is for real!” As we move into the future, it will become easier and easier for the Nigerian Prince to make a tidy profit just by scamming people for $10.60 each.

The science fiction author Robert A. Heinlein invented the word, TANSTAAFL back in 1968.

“There ain’t no such thing as a free lunch.”

This unpronounceable word has endured for over half a century because it contains a really deep truth. For a time, the Internet was almost a free lunch, but it’s not anymore. I’m not sure what I can do about that. I'll just keep on keeping on with KinesavaROCKS and hope for the best.