Forget Robots...It's The Digital Bots That Should Scare You.

Nightmare Bots. What if I told you that a mashup of existing tech could create a bot so real and so scary that it could literally drive a vulnerable person crazy? Think most charismatic and evil cult guru that ever existed in computer bot form. The combination of a powerful language generator GPT-3 and a face born from a generative adversarial network, perhaps with a deepfaked video clip thrown in here and there, could create an online experience that would shake a person to the core. How would it affect you to learn that you had become emotionally attached to an algorithm? Catfishing done by a computer algorithm is possible now, and makes online security even more important. For lawyers, this presents both a threat and an opportunity. Scammers are already using social engineering and computers to steal from unsuspecting persons by pretending to be something they are not. Rule of thumb...if you haven't met a prospective client or lover in the flesh, ignore them online. If you are hired by a client, you need to verify that they exist in the real world. Follow your gut. If something feels wrong, don't follow it. Be careful out there.