Is Artificial Intelligence (AI) embedded within internet technology going to be our downfall?
I've just sat in on a talk given by our local community police team at one of Residential Homes for our elderly residents regarding safety online, where some of the scams that are currently prevalent were discussed.
For the criminals, it's a numbers game and they can target people all around the world with very little outlay and relatively accessible technology, plus they are often supported by larger organised crime networks but they view it as an easy way to make money, and they don't think of themselves as criminals but businessmen.
For the victims it's miserable, and increasingly hard to spot, or avoid. Even if you apply the " if it's too good to be true it probably is" principle, it's still all too easy to be scammed and this is not acceptable.
Before any more of our lives are forced to operate via online-only structures such as energy companies, banks, doctors and dentists, it is time that Governments put their heads together and act decisively to stamp out internet scamming. It's not just social media giants like Facebook, twitter, snapchat et al. that need to shoulder the burden, it's Governments, who have the power, authority and collective technology to impose harsher punishments on the perpetrators and whom together have the ability (if not the will) to get a grip on this before it's too late.
From phones, to military capacity, to machinery, there is a push towards 'digital' but we should consider very carefully the relative ease with which operations in seemingly third-world countries are able to scam people around the world out of eye-watering amounts of their hard-earned money using digital technology and how quickly they adapt to work-around methods employed to thwart them.
Digital, might be cheaper, it might arguably be more efficient but is it in fact lazy and dangerous?
I've moved a long way from the sitting room of a Residential Care Home and watching a Community Support Officer reading from a very useful booklet, and I know that a huge amount IS being done to educate people of all ages - for example:
internet matters.org
The 2023 Online Safety BIll
The National Crime
CEOP COmmand's 'ThinkUKnow 'programme
Get Safe Online.org
Internet Watch Foundation
National Cyber Security Centre
Action Fraud
UK Safer Internet Centre
...to name but a few... you'd think it was more than enough? Perhaps we are approaching the threat the wrong way around - now that AI is in the mix and in the public realm it echoes where we as a civilisation are at. Our lives have become so broad, so boundless in the online dimension (certainly not in the physical realm) and it is overwhelming in many ways to try to think what the solution might be, or what can be done to reduce the severity and impact of cyber-crime - take down the internet? Bring back analogue? Or just limit world wide communication?
gov.uk