AI Is Getting Really Good at Messing With Cybercriminals
AI is now hunting cybercriminals by impersonating their victims — trapping scammers in conversations with bots they think are real people.
Why it matters
Anti-fraud teams are deploying AI chatbots to engage and waste the time of scammers, reversing the typical dynamic where AI is used to commit fraud. This represents a concrete defensive deployment that changes how cybercrime enforcement operates, though the article does not yet provide measurable impact data.
The key facts
9 to knowAI bots are impersonating victims to engage cybercriminals
Goal is to trick scammers into extended conversations with automated systems
Part of growing anti-cybercrime initiatives using AI
No quantified impact metrics, arrest data, or deployment scale disclosed
No specific tools, vendors, or agencies named in excerpt
AI bots used to impersonate victims and trick cybercriminals into extended conversations
Anti-cybercrime initiatives scaling use of lifelike bots as honeypots
Strategy: waste scammer time and resources on fake targets rather than real victims
Deployment appears operational (not pilot phase) across multiple anti-crime initiatives
Go to the source
Wired AIwired.com
Publisher excerpt: Anti-cybercrime initiatives are increasingly using AI to scam the scammers by tricking them into talking to lifelike bots that they think are real victims.