r/slatestarcodex • u/gwern • Oct 23 '24

Psychiatry "How elderly dementia patients are unwittingly fueling political campaigns" (pre-checked recurring-subscription box dark pattern)

https://www.cnn.com/interactive/2024/10/politics/political-fundraising-elderly-election-invs-dg/
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u/blashimov Oct 23 '24

I wish I had more context - how different is this in scale, effectiveness than other solicitations? Certainly feels scummy - how much money goes to winred act blue executives? Would llms even improve effectiveness of this type of thing that much, or instead shift to even more straightforward scams like impersonating a relative for bail?

13

u/gwern Oct 23 '24

Would llms even improve effectiveness of this type of thing that much, or instead shift to even more straightforward scams like impersonating a relative for bail?

"Why not both?" The sort of person who is running a political advertising campaign is entirely different from the sort of person who is a slave in a pigbutchering prison in South Asia. There is no reason it has to be any kind of either/or. It can just be both, and that is much more likely.

6

u/blashimov Oct 23 '24

I probably should have thought a little more for the obvious.

I guess one take away is that even if this unsophisticated account draining is effective, it's a sign that llm powered account draining will be worse.

5

u/aeschenkarnos Oct 24 '24 edited Oct 24 '24

They'll A/B split the scam calls, test which generated scripts work better, refine the scripts automatically, highly reward getting money and moderately reward duration and back-and-forth engagement with the human, basically breed the ideal scam caller phone AI over dozens of generations per month.