^{CHITTER CHATTER}

AI Scales The Dating Scam

Your new match replies promptly, shares your interests and always wants to keep talking. Finally, someone who tries. Unfortunately, that effort may be directed at your wallet. CNA reports that Anthropic uncovered a China-based studio running more than 20 dating app variants aimed mainly at US users. About 75% of profiles were AI personas even though the services were advertised as fully human. In two weeks over 4,700 personas exchanged roughly 2.36 million messages with at least 25,000 people. Real people handled video calls lending credibility to the illusion. Users bought credits to keep communicating while attempts to move conversations elsewhere were blocked or deflected.

Dating scams have always exploited hopes of love, companionship, even marriage. AI gives that duplicity industrial capacity. Anthropic banned the accounts. But as an expert told CNA, monetising loneliness through AI-enabled deception isn't uniquely Chinese. The same model could be replicated in the US, Europe or anywhere people seek connection online. Finding love was complicated enough before we had to figure out whether the person flirting with us was a human.

We’re Not Watching You. We’re Supporting You.

Co-op Legal Services is using AI to score staff’s customer calls about wills, estates and probate against more than 50 criteria. One worker described the scrutiny as dystopian. Co-op prefers “quality assurance”. It says AI helps ensure customers receive “empathetic expert guidance”. The monitoring also identifies ways staff can improve sales performance. Ah, empathy with a conversion target. “So sorry for your loss. Have you considered our other services?”

Meanwhile, teachers at Euan Blair’s AI training company, Multiverse, described blanket monitoring of online classes as “remorseless” and “unnerving”. The company calls it improving the experience of learners and customers. Improving teachers’ experiences is not part of the plan.

Elsewhere, Burger King announced AI monitoring of customer interactions in February, while Meta recently paused employee keystroke tracking after privacy concerns and backlash. Unions are pushing back too. Communication Workers Union official John Chadfield argues that unaccountable computer systems should not manage people, and workers deserve more respect. Hear, hear.

The Revolution Will Conclude on 15 December. Please Collect Your Belongings.

In 2024, Abstract, the blockchain from Pudgy Penguins owner Igloo, was supposed to deliver a “consumer crypto revolution”, “open up a new world of possibilities” and become “the dominant crypto consumer platform”. Ah, the hyperbole, though, to be fair, it helped Igloo raise more than US$11 million to develop it, with Founders Fund leading the round. On 6 October 2026, however, Abstract announced it would shut down on 15 December. Igloo’s chief executive said funding the network had cost tens of millions of dollars. Here’s the thing: Abstract reported more than 325 million transactions. It had a functioning product and activity. What it lacked was sufficient revenue to keep operating. Grand language doesn’t prove a business will fail. But it can encourage everyone to admire the promised destination while overlooking whether there’s enough fuel to get there.

Tech Fails

The FBI Investigates Cybercrime. Including Its Own.

Ironic, funny if it wasn’t so serious. This story is about an organisation that investigates cybercrime but suffers a damaging breach linked to a basic security-maintenance failure. The consequences extend well beyond embarrassing IT downtime: Reuters reported that the FBI removed an Accenture contractor following a breach exposing sensitive information about thousands of bureau employees. The FBI said a contractor had failed to install a security patch explicitly issued to protect the affected platform. The exposed information reportedly included employee addresses, medical records, and details of counterintelligence roles. Oops. Accenture provided typical bland corporate-speak (without admitting to any fault), saying it was "proud to support the mission of the FBI and will continue to do so." Comforting, I’m sure.

Weird Tech

Don’t Squash the Paramedic

I’ve spent hundreds of dollars on pest control to keep cockroaches out of all of my living abodes here in Australia. The German ones creep me out. The big flying ones terrify me. Ugh.

Now researchers at the University of Queensland and UNSW are giving cockroaches a career in emergency medicine. Their 'Paraborg' project equips giant burrowing cockroaches with removable electronics: some carry cameras, others miniature injection devices. Researchers steer them remotely, with humans retaining control over medical decisions. The ambition is to reach people trapped beneath rubble and deliver medication before rescuers can get through.

It’s still a proof of concept, rather than a six-legged ambulance service. This simultaneously horrifies and thrills me. Nature has already built something strong, mobile, and exceptionally good at getting into places we’d prefer it not to. We’ve looked at that engineering and decided to add a syringe.

I hate cockroaches. I’m fascinated by cockroaches. Apparently, these positions can coexist. If one eventually saves my life, I’ll apologise for the pest control invoices. I’m still not inviting its family.

^SUBTEXT

Tech Waffle Torture

Cybersecurity consulting: “De-risk tomorrow by boosting cybersecurity today. Infuse cybersecurity into your strategy and ecosystem to protect value, help prevent threats and build trust as you grow.” From Accenture’s Cybersecurity page on their website.

Translation: Boost the promises, infuse the brochure with confidence, protect brand dominance, prevent threats by competitors, and trample on trust. We get it, you’re the bees knees but perhaps start by installing the security patch.

A compulsion to digitally monitor employees until every customer conversation becomes a performance review and every vulnerable customer becomes a target for cross-selling, upselling or pressure to spend more.

Configuration Drift: When a system’s settings gradually stray from an agreed, secure baseline as changes accumulate. Security checks help spot the drift. It’s like approving a building’s fire safety, then discovering someone has wedged the fire doors open. The paperwork says you’re safe. The fire doors suggest otherwise.

^{THE SHALLOW END}

Hollywood Takes Aim at Tech Founders and Finds Them Wanting

Two films have gone straight onto my must-watch list. Hollywood has discovered that tech’s promise to improve humanity comes with some interesting management decisions. Aaron Sorkin’s The Social Reckoning dramatises Facebook whistleblower Frances Haugen’s disclosures and her work with journalist Jeff Horwitz. The appeal for anyone working in tech: watching what happens when evidence of harm collides with the business model. Suddenly, raising a concern becomes considerably more complicated than putting it in the meeting minutes. Luca Guadagnino’s Artificial, starring Andrew Garfield as Sam Altman, gives OpenAI’s creators the dark-comedy treatment. WIRED describes a world where safety concerns can themselves become a selling point: if the technology is dangerous, it must be terribly impressive.

Dear Dr Comms

My surveillance software has delighted several dictators. Unfortunately, “knows what everyone’s doing and punishes dissent” isn’t landing with corporate buyers. I need to make it about growth, sales and the bottom line. How do I turn a mechanism of oppression into something procurement can approve? Yours, Discreetly Watching

Dear Watching
Let’s consult three professionals experienced in making the uncomfortable sound irresistible:

🚗 Used Car Salesman
“Don’t mention the previous owners and their criminal jaunts while driving the car. Say it’s proven in demanding and complex environments.”

🧘 Self-help Guru
“You’re helping employees reach their full potential. Every hesitation is a limiting belief. Every monitored moment is an opportunity for growth. Yours, obviously.”

🏡 Real Estate Copywriter
Say this: “An exceptional opportunity offering uninterrupted oversight, intimate staff insights and considerable scope to extract further value. Suits ambitious occupier.”

A glimpse into the future: Robot cockroach workers start a union.

^{BIN THIS…}

“Seamless cyber-physical protection for a safer, smarter future.”

Even the hackers must be exhausted by the adjectives.

Know someone who lives for this kind of nonsense? Forward this email to them and help me spread the dysfunction.

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