The FAIK Files 12.20.24
Ep 14 | 12.20.24

The Butcher Will Scam You Now

Transcript

Mason Amadeus: From the 8th Layer Media studios in the back rooms of the Deep Web, this is "The FAIK Files."

Perry Carpenter: The show where artificial intelligence meets natural nonsense, and we do our best to sort through all the aftermath. I'm Perry Carpenter.

Mason Amadeus: And I'm Mason Amadeus. On today's episode, we have a new "Whispers from the Static."

Perry Carpenter: Yes, these "Whispers from the Static" are kind of like a remnant of the book that I wrote, "FAIK,", where I introduced every chapter with a fictional narrative. We did that all throughout the audio miniseries. People loved them, so we're going to bring those back every now and then. And this one starts us wading a little bit into some dark territory before we fully dive into the darkness with our interview.

Mason Amadeus: Yes, this episode's going to be a bit of a heavy one. We talk to Erin West about what authorities are calling ""Pig Butchering"" scams. I didn't know what they were before we started the interview. And yes, it's heavy.

Perry Carpenter: Your reaction was amazing.

Mason Amadeus: So, get ready for that. And then we're going wrap up this episode with something fun, right, Perry?

Perry Carpenter: Oh yes, all about doom --

Mason Amadeus: Yes.

Perry Carpenter: -- specifically probability of doom as it relates to artificial intelligence. You know, wiping out society or a big chunk of the earth.

Mason Amadeus: All that and more coming up on this episode of "The FAIK Files." Just text me that six-digit code that should arrive on your phone right about now and we will move forward after this. Did you get it?

Perry Carpenter: I just got mine.

Mason Amadeus: Perfect. [ Music ]

Erin West: Sarah stared at her investment portfolio's green, hands trembling, $387,452, her life savings, gone. The trading platform that had seemed so legitimate, her relationship with James that had felt so real, the incredible returns she had watched grow week after week, all a carefully orchestrated lie. She thought about James, who had first reached out on LinkedIn three months ago. His profile had seemed impeccable. Harvard MBA, 15 years at Goldman Sachs, profile connections that included several of her own colleagues and that warm smile in his profile photo, the kind of smile that had drawn her in. Their early conversations had been casual, professional. Then he'd mentioned losing his wife to cancer two years ago, and something shifted. Sarah found herself opening up about her own divorce, her struggles with online dating, her mother's recent cancer diagnosis. James always knew exactly what to say, sharing his own vulnerability. His journey as a single dad. The nightly texts had become video chat requests, though something always seemed to come up. His daughter needed help with homework. His trading schedule ran late. The connection was too unstable, but his voice notes made-up for it. His slight British accent adding charm to his daily encouragement. "Mom, this doesn't feel right," Tyler had warned during their Sunday dinner three weeks ago. "Some investment advisor you met on LinkedIn who won't do regular video calls, who keeps pushing you to invest more." Her 24-year old son had been hearing about popular investment scams and even tried to share a few articles with her, but she dismissed his concerns, even gotten angry. "You don't understand, Tyler. James is different. He's been through the same things I have. He's helping me secure our future, your future too." The hurt in Tyler's eyes as he'd back off still haunted her. The initial $5,000 investment had grown to $8,000 in just two weeks. She'd even been able to withdraw 2,000 easily, proof it wasn't a scam. That's when she went all in, liquidating her 401k, taking out a home equity loan. Each skeptical comment from family and friends had only pushed her closer to James, who always knew exactly what to say. "They just don't want to see you succeed, Sarah. They don't understand what we have." Until yesterday, when she tried to withdraw her profits to help pay for her mother's cancer treatment. Suddenly, there were taxes to be paid first, then transfer fees, then international transaction charges. Each payment she made only led to more demands. That's when the horrible truth finally dawned. She had fallen victim to what law enforcement called a "Pig Butchering" scam. Like a pig being fattened for slaughter, fed false hopes of both love and wealth. And then a notification popped up on her screen. James, "Sarah, darling, don't worry about these fees. I care too much about you to let anything happen to your investment. I just need you to make one more small payment." At the same moment, another text came through from Tyler. "Mom, you haven't answered my calls. Are you okay? I'm worried." Fresh tears blurred her vision. Her retirement dreams, her mother's treatment, her future, all vanished into digital wallets she would never recover. Even worse was the hollow ache in her chest, mourning a relationship that had never really existed. But through her tears, she saw something else in Tyler's message, unconditional love. Despite everything, despite her dismissing his warnings, her son still cared. With newfound resolve, she blocked James' number and opened the FBI's IC3 website to file a report. She then picked up her phone and dialed Tyler's number. "Mom?" His voice was instantly concerned. "What's wrong?" "You were right," she whispered, "about everything. I -- I need your help." "I'll be there in 20 minutes," he said without hesitation. As she waited, Sarah began documenting everything, every red flag she'd ignored, every manipulation tactic, every painful lesson learned. Her fingers trembled over the keyboard, but she kept typing. She'd lost her savings, but she won't let James steal her dignity too. That evening, as Tyler helped her file police reports and freeze accounts, Sarah discovered "Operation Shamrock," a group dedicated to fighting back against these scams. The stories she heard echoed her own, the fake profiles, the manufactured intimacy, the calculated grooming. As she learned more, something shifted inside her. She'd transform her pain into purpose, her story becoming a beacon of warning that might save someone else. After all, the most valuable investment wasn't in some too good to be true trading platform. It was in protecting others from predators who weaponized loneliness and hope. Real love, she realized, didn't demand wire transfers or hide behind excuses. It showed up in 20 minutes when you called. It stayed even when you messed up. It had been there all along, not in romantic messages from strangers, but in the worried texts of a son who never gave up on his mom. >> The FAIK Files.

Perry Carpenter: All right. I am so excited because we're going to talk about something really, really important. We have Erin West with us of "Operation Shamrock," and we're going to be talking all about "Pig Butchering". Erin, thank you for joining us so much. Can we just lead off with the question, "What is "Pig Butchering"?"

Erin West: Well, first, thank you so much for having me. It's a great honor to be on your podcast. So, "Pig Butchering" is a combination romance scam/investment scam. And when I tell you how it's perpetrated, you'll think, "Oh wait, I actually know this part." So, the way it starts is it starts in one of four ways, but one of them is getting on your phone, a text that looks like it's misdirected. It looks like it's gone to the wrong number. Like, "Can I bring my dog in for an appointment?" or "You left your shoes in my car?" One I saw this week was, "You're blocking my driveway." Things that are just meant to get your attention and be like, "Oh, what is this?" and respond. The scammers are reaching out also on LinkedIn, on Facebook and on dating apps. But what happens once they get your attention, is the very next text will be the -- the scammer dropping in a photograph of an attractive young woman, usually Asian, and she will say, "Hi, my name is Jessica. I hope I'm not bothering you. You seem like a nice person." And while that may sound to us like, "Oh, I don't think I'd respond to that," the fact is the tens of thousands of Americans and other people worldwide are responding to that. We are really in a loneliness crisis and people welcome an opportunity to have someone interested in them.

Perry Carpenter: You mentioned a young woman. Is it restricted to just that or is there kind of, you know, any gender preference represented?

Erin West: Yes, I've seen both men and women. I usually talk about it in terms of Jessica, just because I'm so familiar with that persona.

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Erin West: But I will tell you, I see equal numbers of female victims of this.

Perry Carpenter: Okay.

Erin West: And that's a really good point because it's not just men or women, and it's not just the Elderly. It's -- I've had victims from ages 20 to 80. That conversation begins the long con. And the scammer will spend 90 days trying to get to know that victim. And what they're doing over that time period is they're really building a trust. They are creating the relationship that this victim always wished that they had and really paying attention in a really warm way to that victim that feels genuine and feels really welcome. And part of what they're doing is they're trying to figure out during that time period exactly how much money the victim has, because the scam doesn't end until the scammer has taken every last dollar from the victim. So, the first part of it is just a getting-to-know-you period and really showing a lifestyle -- the scammer will show a lifestyle that is really posh and elevated. They'll drive a nice car. They'll travel well. And so, our victim will have every reason to believe that this scammer persona is a well -- well-financed person. And then, once they've been -- once they've fallen in love or really created this relationship, that's when the scammer says something like, "Well, you may wonder where I got this money. It's because I invest in cryptocurrency. My uncle taught me, and my uncle could teach you." And that's when, you know, plenty of people who think, "Oh, I would never invest in cryptocurrency," once you're in this dream and you have all the endorphins of being in love and your dreams could come true that, you know, not only are you in this perfect relationship, but you also could make some money, that's when the -- that's when Phase Two starts and the scammer will say, "Well, why don't you just invest a little bit?" And so, they'll know what a little bit is to that specific victim, but $5,000 is common. The victim will then move their money, their U.S. dollars, at the direction of the scammer into a cryptocurrency account, a cryptocurrency wallet at an exchange. And that would be something they've heard of, like Coinbase or crypto.com. They put the money into the exchange and the scammer leads them step-by-step through screenshots how to change their U.S. dollars into Tether, a stable coin known as USDT. It's pegged to the U.S. dollar. Now our victims have 5,000 tether instead of 5,000 US dollars, but it's still in their control. The control changes when the scammer says, "Okay, my uncle says it's a good time to invest. Now, let's put the money into the platform." And what our victim will then do is be directed to move the money out of their control into what they believe is an investment platform. Really, what's happening is that money is getting moved from mule account to mule account down the blockchain, but to our victim, they are seeing an elaborate platform that looks like their money is going up in value. And so, it's 6800, now it's 7500, and by the end of the week it's 10,000 and our victim thinks they've literally hit the jackpot. They've found this warm relationship and they're going to be wealthy.

Mason Amadeus: Wow.

Perry Carpenter: So -- so that dashboard that they're seeing is just pure fiction. It's not even tied to Tether or crypto that that they've owned. Is that correct?

Erin West: That's exactly right. And you know, for our victims who often don't have any experience in cryptocurrency, they are trusting and they're trusting their loved one. And so, they believe now that they've made all this money.

Mason Amadeus: So, this -- I was not expecting it to be this long of a con and going into this I didn't know what a "Pig Butchering" scheme was. It sounds and let me know if this is accurate, it sounds like a mashup of the Nigerian Prince scheme, most common tech support schemes, the screenshots and like showing you things happening you don't understand, and like a -- a catfishing or romance scam. It just sounds like a -- a supreme mashup of those three kinds of tricks. Just a long authenticity play to separate you from your money.

Erin West: You -- you get it. You absolutely get it. And I think that that -- they've taken the best of each of those and they've matched it with -- they throw in some urgency that my uncle says this is the week to do it. They throw in some isolation. They tell the victim that they are the only one that can be trusted. And yes, it's a -- it's a good combination of all those schemes. But the difference here, Mason, is that it's all the money our victims have. Never before have we seen a scheme so laser-focused on taking the entire wealth of the victim.

Mason Amadeus: I didn't put that together.

Perry Carpenter: Yes, and that's the origin of -- of the term, right?

Mason Amadeus: Yes. I was curious. Why is -- why is it called "Pig Butchering"? Is it because you -- wait, can I take a guess?

Erin West: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: Is it because when you butcher a pig, you like, cut its throat and hang it upside down until all the blood drains out of it? And so, they're doing that with your bank account.

Erin West: I love that.

Mason Amadeus: Is it like a visceral visual metaphor?

Erin West: It -- I mean, I haven't thought of it that way. The way I've thought of it is that basically these scammers are consuming the victim from snout to tail, leaving nothing on the bone. But traditionally what they mean by it is that they're going to fatten you up and then slaughter you. And the fattening up are these love bombs. And that's what our victims are experiencing. It's just -- it is unprecedented in a number of different ways, but the idea that you lose everything and they're familiar with the fact that you have a 401K because you've told them you have a retirement account. They know you have college accounts for your kids. And so, they are going to decimate every piece of this. And then at the end, when you think that you've put all your money in and now, you'd like to withdraw some, that's when they hit you with the taxes, the fake taxes.

Perry Carpenter: Which is like the Nigerian Prince scheme, right, is you need to -- you need to now give us this amount of money so that the rest can be unlocked for you, right?

Erin West: That's exactly it.

Mason Amadeus: So, the sunk cost fallacy is being exploited too, once you've done a little, a little more. Oh my God.

Erin West: [inaudible 00:16:50] there you go.

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Erin West: Oh my gosh, it's absolutely the sunk cost fallacy. And now, the money has to be new money. You can't take your gains. So, now our victims are doing quick high interest loans because they think that this is just a quick turnaround --

Mason Amadeus: Oh, no.

Erin West: -- that they're going to have access to all this money. So, they're taking out loans against their houses. They're taking quick high interest loans. They're borrowing from parents, family members, and then sometimes they'll pay that and then they'll say, "Well, now I need another $10,000 for this." By the time victims get to me as a former prosecutor who dealt with these victims, they were decimated. They have lost their entire financial stability, and they've come to realize that the person they trusted with all of this, had been literally plotting their demise since the first conversation. This wasn't a relationship that went sour. This was never a relationship.

Mason Amadeus: That is gutting.

Erin West: Yes, it is gutting.

Perry Carpenter: A couple of things that -- that I want to highlight that you touched on and that Mason kind of teased at a little bit as well, is that the -- the combination of cognitive vulnerabilities there is pretty amazing. You talked about the -- the loneliness epidemic. You talked about the hope for a brighter financial future, the sunk cost fallacy and the long-term investment, not only of emotion, but of finance and -- and time. You know, all of that comes together in a really interesting way, combined with the fact that many people don't know that these kinds of attacks even exist. I mean, we talk so much about phishing and holiday scams and gift cards and all that other kind of stuff that when you get hit with this emotionally rich, hopeful, long-term life partner kind of getting set up for the future type of scam, it has to hit these victims in extremely devastating ways as they see like everything unravel once they admit to themselves that this is happening.

Erin West: You're absolutely right. It's, you know, I've been a prosecutor for 26 years and I just have not seen the devastation that I've seen happening to these victims. And it's interesting because I think our criminal justice system is well set up for victims of violent crime, and not at all set up for victims of financial crime. We're not yet acknowledging how devastating that can be.

Mason Amadeus: Yes, is there any recourse? Like, what do you do when that happens to you? Is it bankruptcy and just do the best you can to like pull -- like what -- what do you do? What recourse is there?

Erin West: So, the first thing we tell people is to report, and they should report to their local law enforcement and they should report to ic3.gov, the FBI's online platform. But I think tough love is very important here because what we're seeing with victims is they're not getting help from their local law enforcement, who's just now learning what cryptocurrency is and how to investigate it. And they're just not getting help from the federal government because they're so overwhelmed. It's like a fire hose. So, the truth of the matter is that they are not likely to recover any money, but they're getting secondarily scammed by evil people out there who are offering to get money back for them. And so, now they're paying 2,000, 5,000, 15,000 for someone to trace their cryptocurrency, which all seems like a very good idea if you don't know anything about this.

Mason Amadeus: Yes.

Erin West: And -- and so, that's what's happening to our victims next. We really desperately need to normalize this as the next Nigerian Prince. We need everybody to know about it and we need to exercise tough love about -- about you're not likely to get any money back. So, please don't spend any money in pursuit of getting some money back.

Mason Amadeus: Wow.

Perry Carpenter: Wow.

Mason Amadeus: If that doesn't make your blood boil, I don't know what would.

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Erin West: It's exhausting. What we're seeing is adult children whose parents commit suicide, and they don't know why. And then they start going through their parents' life and they realize, "Oh, my gosh, the family fortune is gone." The thing is, we're talking about every penny they have. So, we're talking, especially where I live in Silicon Valley, you know, a million dollars is not uncommon, 2 million, 3 million. It's a lot of money. But even if it's -- even if it's less than that 50,000 or 200,000 or whatever, it's always everything the victim has.

Mason Amadeus: Gosh.

Perry Carpenter: Wow.

Mason Amadeus: Given that this is "The FAIK Files," fake with AI in the middle, AI is only going to make this easy as you create personalized agents that do this for you, right?

Erin West: You're exactly right. And that's what's really scary.

Mason Amadeus: Oh, God.

Erin West: So, right now, this will make you crazy, is that the people on the other side of the scam are actually human trafficked victims.

Mason Amadeus: Oh, my gosh.

Perry Carpenter: That's what I was about to say is -- is that in -- in these cases, there's victims all around, right? So, it's the person that is being butchered the -- the way that we're thinking about this, but it's also the scammer that we want to get mad at --

Mason Amadeus: Is a victim of human trafficking?

Perry Carpenter: -- is a victim being, yes.

Mason Amadeus: Being forced to do this?

Erin West: Yes. Let me set that up for you.

Mason Amadeus: What? Yes.

Erin West: So -- so this -- this is all being done on a industrialized scale and it's being done in Southeast Asia at the hands of Chinese organized criminals, and I don't say that lightly. We know who they are. We are familiar with their work. Some of them have been convicted of organized crime in the past. Some of them are members of the triad. But what they've done is they've essentially set up communities throughout Cambodia, throughout Myanmar, where they are doing this on an industrial scale. They have almost mini cities set up to do this work. So, when you think of how you fill the towers that are set up now to do this work, you need a lot of humans to be running cell phones with each victim four to five hours a day is not uncommon. So, imagine you've got 20 people that you're chatting with. That's exhausting. You know, you have a limited capacity when you're dealing with humans. When you have AI running those conversations, imagine how exponentially you can reach more people and conduct more conversations.

Mason Amadeus: Yes.

Erin West: But back to our human trafficked victims, in order to fill these towers to do this work, the psychological tricks they're using are state-of-the-art. The tech they're using, state-of-the-art. And what they're doing to fill their buildings is state-of-the-art. They've created websites and job advertisements that make it look like they are recruiting for a legitimate company. Victims will apply thinking that they're getting out of the 20% unemployment in Southeast Asia to come do a live/work job and do graphic design or data entry. When they arrive in Bangkok, they've been provided an airline ticket to get to Bangkok. And when they get there, their passports are taken, and they are put into buses and they are moved to these compounds where they are forced to do this dirty work 17 hours a day. And I -- I just came back from having seen these compounds and I can tell you the stories of the brutality and violence that is happening inside these compounds is a human rights travesty. We need to raise the temperature and amplify how bad this is on both sides. We've got two sets of victims, and the only winners are organized criminals. >> You're listening to, "The FAIK Files."

Mason Amadeus: If the perpetrators are so known and so well-established and to the point that you were able to tour them, like, why haven't they been dealt with at all, it sounds like?

Erin West: Yes, let me back up and say that I did not get inside any of them. I was in Thailand. I could see across the Thai Myanmar border to what was happening in Myanmar. But yes, these are known people. We're talking about people like Broken Tooth Koi. We are talking about people like Shay Jiang [phonetic], who's currently in custody, but what we have is these -- I told you the enemy is super smart and what they've done is set up camp in countries where we are unable to access them and to make a difference. They are operating in Cambodia with a very large public corruption problem in that nation and we know that the amount that is coming in from these scams makes up half the Cambodian GDP.

Mason Amadeus: Holy smokes!

Erin West: Oh, yes.

Perry Carpenter: Yes. So, there's an economic incentive for the government to just let it play out, right?

Erin West: Yes, yes.

Perry Carpenter: Oh.

Erin West: And we've never seen this level of wealth transfer. We're talking tens of billions of dollars. We're talking about a generation's worth of wealth.

Perry Carpenter: Having seen photos of these compounds too, they're -- they're essentially like prisons. So, if you can think of everybody that's in a -- a high security prison being given cell phones and saying you have to scam all of these other people and regardless of whatever ethical framework you live by up to that point, you now have to toss all that away and see everybody else as just somebody to be slaughtered. That has to be hugely emotionally impacting on the people that are, you know, thumbs to keyboard and -- and voice to -- to phone doing the scams, right?

Erin West: It's horrendous. And -- and those people are literally throwing themselves out of windows, so they've put bars over the windows so that that can't happen anymore. I mean, imagine a situation where, as part of the motivation for you to do your job, they take the guy who's sitting next to you and brutalize him in front of you, hit him with baseball bat in front of you. And so, you know what'll happen to you. We're hearing from people who rescue people from these compounds that seven to ten women -- seven out of women coming out of there have been sexually assaulted.

Perry Carpenter: God.

Erin West: It's -- it's vile. And -- and some of the just weird torture that I've heard about is -- is horrendous. It's like they've turned up the volume on every single part of this scam so that it's absolutely excruciating for every person involved in it.

Mason Amadeus: This is the most cruel thing that I've heard of --

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: -- at like particularly at this scale --

Erin West: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: -- operating, just -- just operating now, quietly --

Erin West: With impunity.

Mason Amadeus: -- while we're all doing our own thing.

Erin West: Yes.

Perry Carpenter: Wow. Geez.

Erin West: Yes.

Perry Carpenter: In one of our previous episodes, we talked about O2 creating this Daisy AI that will just waste scammers' time. In this instance, though, if our response to one of those first text messages is to string the person along and to make them feel stupid or waste their time, can that result in somebody getting beat on the other end?

Mason Amadeus: Oh my, gosh.

Erin West: It absolutely can. So honestly, that was one of my first concerns when I saw Daisy is I love -- I love that idea, but for this scam, that won't work. And yes, the absolute reality, I mean, let me be clear. There definitely are people inside those compounds who are choosing to be there because it is a lucrative job. The vast majority are not. So, anything we do that makes it more difficult for this scammer makes it more difficult for a human trafficked victim.

Perry Carpenter: So, then the -- the next logical question is when we get one of those texts, what do we do personally? And when we hear of other people that are responding those, what do we do?

Erin West: You shouldn't respond. You should just -- you should block and move on. And I always say about this scam, "Okay, well, now we're on notice, right?" So, now that we know that that's what's happening, then it -- it almost becomes a moral imperative to say, "Don't play with these scammers unless -- unless what you're going after is, I think you're in trouble. I think you're trapped in a compound. Can you -- can you tell me where you are?" But other than that, it just doesn't do us any good to communicate with them. It doesn't do them any good, rather.

Perry Carpenter: Right.

Mason Amadeus: Is there -- is there anyone -- I like -- what can anyone do? Is there a concerted effort being made anywhere? Is there something that the average person can do to support that concerted effort?

Erin West: Yes, so -- so I've been studying this for over two years. I -- I retired this week from being a prosecutor. The way I was seeing it is I was seeing victims who were decimated coming to us for help. And for about the first year, we were able to claw back money for them. But the scammers have changed the way they do business. They're too fast and we haven't been able to recover money for a long time. So, I started thinking about where the gaps were here and what needed to be done and I started saying for a long time, "We needed to educate, seize, disrupt." We need to educate law enforcement about what this is. We need to educate potential victims of what this is. We need to educate bankers about, "This is what it's going to look like when someone comes into your bank and says they want to withdraw money from their 401K." We need to seize what we can and that we need to put data together. One of the things that I found as soon as I started working on this was Meta telling me, "Well, we can identify the seven syndicates that are operating there." And then I talked to an NGO on the ground over there and they said, "Well, I can identify cryptocurrency addresses that are used to pay ransom to get people out of there." So, I can put an address to a location. So, as hearing that, I was like, "Well, this data, data is what we need."

Perry Carpenter: Big data.

Erin West: Big data, and we need data talking to each other. And we need to figure out a couple of things. Like one, how do we get over the privacy laws regarding data sharing? But two, where are we going to store this data and who's going to have access to it and what -- what can they do with it? So, that's educate, seize. And then the last one was disrupt, that we need to look at the entire life cycle of Pig Butchering from the social media connection to law, to banking, to crypto, to law enforcement, to diplomacy to NGOs, to victim services. And what we really need to do is we need to get all these people together. And so, I called it Operation Shamrock and I -- and I did a big kick off. And then from there we split into working groups. Goodness knows, we love to do a panel on what's happening out there and how bad it is, but this isn't time for panels. This is time for, "What can you do today?" If you're a banker, look around your shop and figure out what can be done better today. If you're law enforcement, get yourself signed up for a cryptocurrency class. If you are, I mean, just every -- everybody needs to do 1% better today than they were tomorrow. And that's the idea of Operation Shamrock is we're going to get our hands dirty and we're going to start -- we're going to start clawing through what it would take to move forward. How do we disrupt this? Where are the pain points that we can work? And so -- and so, that's what we're up to. And so, I retired on Monday and Tuesday was day one of -- of CEO of Operation Shamrock. And this is what I'm doing full time now, because this -- we've never seen a crisis like this. This is literally World War Three in a digital version. This is how they are coming for us. They are going to steal all of our money, and they are going to disrupt the way we -- the way we trust and the way we exist. So, sorry, I'll get off my soapbox, but I'm really passionate about this. I think we are asleep at the wheel as people are getting crushed.

Mason Amadeus: No, please, this soapbox is for you. We put --

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: -- we brought the soapbox for you to stand on. Holy smokes.

Erin West: Right? It's crazy.

Perry Carpenter: I've got one last question that I had planned that I want to give you a chance to speak on, because I see on LinkedIn and other social media platforms, whenever people talk about Pig Butchering, one of the responses that is inevitable is like, "Why can't we just change that to, you know, a less visceral name?" Is it disrespecting the victims? Is it, you know, is it just distasteful to use a term like this? I have my thoughts, but I want to know yours.

Erin West: I'm happy to tell you mine and then I'd love to hear yours. So, this one hits hard for me because you -- it would be difficult to find someone more empathetic to victims than I am. I very much care about victims and how they feel about themselves. But there is a very -- first of all, I think we are wasting time talking about what we're going to call this. I think that all of that is time that could be spent on finding a solution. But secondly, when we start calling it different things, we can't even agree on what the other thing is we're going to call it. Some people call it financial grooming. Some people call it confidence scams. The problem is that further dilutes what's happening. What we have is we have a targeted attack by an enemy, and they call it "Pig Butchering." And let's call it "Pig Butchering" because it gets attention. You know, Mason, we were talking before this, like, you didn't know what "Pig Butchering" was before you got on this call. But like, the name "Pig Butchering" is intriguing, right?

Mason Amadeus: Yes.

Erin West: Like, "What's this woman talking about?"

Mason Amadeus: Absolutely, 100%.

Erin West: Right? Like, if I told you we're going to do a podcast today on financial grooming, you might be like, "Oh, all right."

Mason Amadeus: Right. "Oh, I guess I'll open a Roth IRA or whatever it's going to be about."

Erin West: Right.

Mason Amadeus: Yes.

Erin West: Exactly. Yes. Yes, yes, yes. So, I mean, so that's the point is this is so vile. This practice is horrific. And so, we need to do what it takes to get this on the nightly news and 60 Minutes and, you know, in -- in Hollywood productions. We need to focus on what this is, call it what it is, and get everybody on board that it's deplorable.

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: Yes.

Perry Carpenter: That's -- that very much mirrors the way that I think about it as somebody who's like been out there and -- and you have a cause. Like recently, the book that I put out, one of the things you want to do is PR, and there always has to be like a hook is like, "Does it fit in this time of year? Does it fit with this news cycle?" And if you're just saying, "Well, let's -- let's talk about long con romance scams," well, maybe you're going to get hurt around Valentine's Day for that. But this is something that needs year-round attention and I think the -- the visceral nature of the name, speaks to the fact that horrible things are being done. They're not going to forget it the same as they might go romance scam or long con romance scam or financial -- all these things that sound very antiseptic, very clean. This is not a clean scam.

Mason Amadeus: Yes. No, absolutely not. And honestly, I kind of feel like you all tricked me because I thought we were going to talk about some like, small scale scam where people like, "Oh, well, do you want to split the cost of a whole pig?" and then they don't give you like the half you paid for or something. I didn't think we were going to go here. This is --

Erin West: It's mind blowing.

Mason Amadeus: Yes. I've -- I've heard of all the elements of this in -- in -- in bits and pieces, but the extent and the way that they're all strung together, that is completely shocking. I -- I kind of feel at a -- at a loss as to what to do as an individual.

Perry Carpenter: Yes, it's heartbreaking.

Mason Amadeus: Yes. How can -- how can I help?

Erin West: Yes, I didn't answer your question. I -- I told you what I'm doing. So, operationshamrock.org is up on the web. You can opt in in any number of ways. Like, I don't -- I don't know what anyone's skills are. So, I ask you to tell me because I will plug you into my volunteer network and I will put you to work. And if you opt in, then you'll start getting our -- our newsletter and you'll -- you'll be able to know more about it. I mean, for example, I was just there, and I knew what I thought I knew about this. And then I get there, and I see that the compounds stretch eye to eye, like all the way across the horizon with cranes up and cement trucks coming in through Thailand to continue construction. We're not anywhere near shutting this down. And so, it's got to be all hands-on deck.

Mason Amadeus: Wow.

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: Well, I'm -- I'm filling out the form right now.

Erin West: Please do. Please do.

Mason Amadeus: But -- operationshamrock.org. We'll put a link in the Show Notes to that, too.

Perry Carpenter: Absolutely.

Mason Amadeus: Wow.

Perry Carpenter: And if anybody has people that they're concerned about in their life and they're starting to like hear from their parents or friends and you're getting that gut reaction like they may be getting conned like this, where do they go? You mentioned local law enforcement and IC3. Any -- any other way to have an intervention or start a conversation in a way that would be heard?

Erin West: I'm so glad you said that, because that is probably the number one question I'm asked is, "I think my mom's in this and I can't get her out. She's not listening to me. She's not hearing what I'm saying." So, I think we're going to be putting together some videos for just that, because what needs to happen is you need to have a -- a grasp on this particular typology so that you can say to your mom, "Okay, so where did you meet this person?" And then, "Did that person move you to WhatsApp?" because that's going to happen every single time. Like, be familiar with the pieces of this to make your mom understand that maybe what she's experiencing isn't quite as unique as what she thought.

Mason Amadeus: Is there a quick hit list of tell-tale signs that you are capable of rattling off without -- with me springing that on you?

Erin West: Yes, a couple of things.

Perry Carpenter: Yes, and we can do that and -- and we can end with that or --

Erin West: Perfect.

Perry Carpenter: -- do that and then end with a last statement. That'd be great.

Erin West: That sounds great.

Perry Carpenter: Perfect.

Erin West: Okay, so the number one thing is you always want to be -- we cannot be trusting online anymore. Any inbound electronic communication that you did not request, you should assume to be a scammer until they prove otherwise. Any inbound texts that you didn't ask for, do not respond. But the telltale signs that -- that this is happening to you are somebody dropping a photo in, early in the conversation. Number two, once they have a couple of sentences with you, maybe, you know, just a minute of conversation back and forth, they will want to move this to an encrypted communication platform, usually WhatsApp, sometimes Telegram. They will undoubtedly start showing off an elevated lifestyle. Those are things to look out for. They always do yoga. They always play golf. Then they want you to invest and maybe they don't have the knowledge, but their uncle does or their auntie does because they're going to hand you off to the advisor to keep themselves out of the money part. They want to be the loving support. Let someone else handle the money part. Those are just very typical things of how this moves. And then anytime that you're taking money out of any kind of tax deferred account, you need to be very aware of what you're doing. So, those are just some things to know that you can also -- I always say lead with empathy because the people who are in this are not going to respond well to you saying this is a scam.

Mason Amadeus: So, I think something that -- and maybe this is obvious, but it might be important to mention that like even if you, the person listening or any one of us feels like the signs would become obvious once money started being needed to move, knowing those things to look out for is helpful for when you hear other people talking about this. So, if you hear someone saying, "Why are you using Telegram?" "Oh, I was chatting with this person and they -- they said that it's a better platform," if they're talking about a friend who is like doing yoga and golf and has a rich lifestyle that they just met. So, like not just looking out for these for ourselves, but looking out for hearing that from other people is -- is an important thing, right? To protect the people around you?

Erin West: So important. And I -- I love that you're looking out for the community because that's where we need to be right now.

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: Because I -- I imagine people who would be listening to a podcast like this are probably a little bit more skeptical of everything anyway. So, if you're here, maybe your role is to listen to the people around you and look for those kinds of things.

Erin West: For sure. Yes.

Perry Carpenter: Erin, any last thought that we should have teased out that we didn't think to tease out yet?

Erin West: The only thing I would say is that we need to look at this with a can-do attitude, because it would be very easy to say, "This is too big. I don't know what to do about this. I'm -- I'm frozen." We've got to just start chipping away at it every single day. That's the only way we make any progress here.

Perry Carpenter: Thank you so much for joining us. This has been fantastic.

Mason Amadeus: Thank -- yes, thank you so much.

Erin West: Oh, it was a pleasure. Mason, just seeing your reaction was money. You just -- you could not believe. >> This is "The FAIK" Files." [ Music ] >> Here's something totally unrelated.

Mason Amadeus: So, to close out this very heavy, very serious episode, I thought we would take a sort of light-hearted look at a dark topic of P Doom. What do you know about P Doom, Perry?

Perry Carpenter: P Doom is something that a lot of the folks in the AI community talk about. It's people's understanding or their guesstimate of how likely AI is to cause these huge existential threats, wipe society off the face of the earth, pull peace society apart or even just take over in a Skynet type of fashion. And lots of respected people have a wide variety of where they land within the spectrum of -- of P doominess.

Mason Amadeus: Yes. So, it's P as in "probability" and then "doom" in parentheses if you -- if you want to look this up.

Perry Carpenter: Like a little equation.

Mason Amadeus: Yes, like it started as a half serious thing, just sort of a joke. Asking people like, "Oh, what's your P doom? What's your probability that this all ends in doom for all of us?" And it's kind of taken on a more serious tone, I guess, as -- as people grapple with real fears around this. So, I thought it'd be fun for us to calculate our personal P doom and then look at some famous people, some AI researchers, and their P Dooms, the ones who have published them online. And there isn't one set formula. It's -- it's your personal probability out of 100, and people seem to determine it different ways. So, I asked ChatGPT because I figured, "Hey, why not ask the -- the thing that could doom us to give us a little points-based quiz to figure out our P Doom?" So, each of these we're going to answer these questions on a scale of one to five and I'll write your answers on my whiteboard desk and at the end we will calculate this.

Perry Carpenter: Now, there are various places online too, if you're interested, and we'll put them in the Show Notes where you can go and you can see the probability scores that have been attributed to several major players in the AI industry. And you have people all the way from like less than 0.01% which is Yann LeCun of Meta, all the way up to people that are 99 and then like repeating nines after that, which is, yes, pretty -- pretty serious. So, respected people fall everywhere in there. And it's -- it's really interesting to like start to get to the why. And even the World Economic Forum mentions things like this in it. I don't know that they specifically mention P Doom, but they do talk about the danger of AI, not necessarily in just deciding to rise up and wipe out the world, but the danger of AI is becoming something that makes society decide to pull itself apart in different ways through disinformation, misinformation, propagation of agendas, misrepresenting, you know, truth and all of that other fun stuff.

Mason Amadeus: Right. And I think that that actually is an important point. P Doom itself isn't a scientific measure. It's more of like a -- a temperature check. But it is --

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: -- a good way for people to just kind of quickly give, "What percentage likelihood do you think that this is going to be bad?"

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: So, we'll go through this quiz and sort of talk about each of these points as we go.

Perry Carpenter: All right.

Mason Amadeus: And listener, if you want to play along with us, mark down your scores, and then at the end, add them all together, subtract 6, divide by 24, multiply by 100. That's your P Doom. So --

Perry Carpenter: P Doom me.

Mason Amadeus: -- on a scale of one to five, how do you feel about AI surpassing human intelligence with one being it's exciting, AI can solve all of our problems, and five being terrifying. This could end for -- end badly for humanity.

Perry Carpenter: Two.

Mason Amadeus: You'd put yourself as a two?

Perry Carpenter: Yes, I'm fairly optimistic.

Mason Amadeus: About AI surpassing human intelligence?

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: Interesting because that, oh, the -- people talk about AGI a lot, which is the artificial general intelligence, when it's like equivalent to a human roughly, in colloquial speech. That's typically what people mean. And then ASI, artificial superintelligence is when it becomes smarter than us. I'm worried about that because like, I don't care about ants that much. Like, I'm not going to hurt -- I'm not going to go out of my way to hurt ants, but like if there's a couple in my kitchen --

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: -- they're -- I'm probably going squish him.

Perry Carpenter: Actually, in the -- the next episode that we do, I'm going to bring a paper that -- that may curtail my two down to something, you know, a little bit more pessimistic, but I need to do some thinking about the paper that I'm reading.

Mason Amadeus: Interesting. So -- so, you'd personally, you'd put yourself as a -- at a two for that one?

Perry Carpenter: Yes, mostly because intelligence is different than agency and the ability to -- to execute on that thing in a way that has like intention behind it.

Mason Amadeus: That is very true. That is very true. I'm going to put myself as a four.

Perry Carpenter: Ooh.

Mason Amadeus: I'm -- I -- I'm -- it's the military industrial complex for me that -- that makes me nervous about autonomous weapons and then surpassing human intelligence. So -- but --

Perry Carpenter: Yes, swarms of various -- and I've seen these online swarms of very small drones that have the ability to think and -- and kill based on that and can -- yes.

Mason Amadeus: That kind of stuff gets to me on that one.

Perry Carpenter: That gets pretty scary.

Mason Amadeus: Question two, "What's your level of trust in AI developers with one point being high, most developers are ethical and have humanity's best interest at part -- at heart, and number five being low trust, they're rushing ahead without considering consequences.

Perry Carpenter: That's a really good question. I think that there's so much on either side of that. I'm just going to go with three.

Mason Amadeus: I was going to -- I was going to say if you need to -- to think, I could tell you mine is a three, because it's kind of --

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: -- I feel like people are really all across the gamut on this one. There's --

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: -- people that are rushing ahead. There are people that are like Anthropic was founded out of Open AI's safety team and they're pretty concerned. But yes, okay. So, that's a three from you and a three for me. I feel like that's a pretty reasonable one.

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: Number 3, do you think AI alignment problems will be solved in time with one point being yes and five points being no? Anything in the middle being a different flavor of maybe alignment problems will be solved?

Perry Carpenter: I'm between 3 and 4 on that. I think alignment is going to be this thing that we struggle with forever because right now, interpretability is so difficult. So, alignment and interpretability need to go forward, hand-in-hand. We need to understand what's going on inside the black box, make that less of a black box, and then be able to tame the thing that's there. So, let me -- let me just for the sake of being pessimistic, let me pick a four on that.

Mason Amadeus: Pick a four. That one I'm also a four on, just because it's really tricky the way we're trying to do it now, as we've talked about in a few different segments.

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: Question Number 4, there are six questions in total. Question Number 4, what do you think about the impact of AI on human jobs and society, with one point being AI will improve our lives and free us from menial tasks completely, and five points being it'll create massive inequality and Unrest? I know the timeline is tough on this one.

Perry Carpenter: Yes, I know the timeline's tough. There's going to be disruption. Ultimately, I'm on the three and above side. I don't think that necessarily we get to the utopian bit of this because humans will, you know, anything that's like utopia tends to turn to dystopia. I guess --

Mason Amadeus: Yes.

Perry Carpenter: -- to -- to be, just to be safe, I would -- I would say a three. Yes, I -- I don't know. I'm going to -- actually, I'm going to pivot and I'll say a two.

Mason Amadeus: Okay. And I -- I -- I put myself down as a three for the same things. Like it really just depends on what else is happening once certain capabilities and spread happen. Like that one's so dependent --

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: -- on other factors, it's hard to isolate. Final two questions. Number 5 is how much influence should AI have in critical systems with one point being a lot, five points being minimal. ChatGPT said five points being minimal. This is how we get Skynet. I -- I come down low on this one. I'm a two personally. I -- I think that integrating AI into a lot of like database things could lead to a lot of efficiency in systems that exist that are like understaffed. Potentially. Maybe. Oh, I say that and then I immediately have thoughts that like, "Well, no, it won't. I don't want to talk to a chat bot."

Perry Carpenter: Yes, it's all one of those "it depends" things. For the near future, there's a whole bunch of systems where you do want a human in the loop. Ultimately, though, if we're -- we're thinking about where AI needs to grow, then there's scale and efficiency that can be brought once you've sorted out the inconsistency issues. So, it -- it will be like a lot of the systems that we have now. Anything that can be automated reliably will be automated reliably. And then you look at your risk and your failure rates in comparison with what human oversight would do. Does the AI ultimately end up doing better or does it do worse? And then you have human oversight or human in the loop until the AI consistently outperforms the human every -- you know, nearly every single time.

Mason Amadeus: So, that sounds to me like it would be somewhere between a three and a two, where it's -- it's not full control right away, throw it in, but it's like, keep a human in the loop, like really.

Perry Carpenter: Yes. I mean, I think ultimately, we're working towards like a two.

Mason Amadeus: I put myself as a three. I actually -- I moved up from a two to a three because I remember the military is involved and that's the one that really makes me nervous.

Perry Carpenter: Right. Yes. People with agendas that end up controlling the systems kind of skew everything.

Mason Amadeus: And our final question, and then we'll get our P Doom numbers. How likely do you think it is that we'll end up with rogue or misaligned AI in a way that we cannot control, with one point being pretty unlikely and five points being very likely?

Perry Carpenter: In a way that we cannot control?

Mason Amadeus: Yes.

Perry Carpenter: I'm going say two on that as well.

Mason Amadeus: I also am at a two, just because again of the boundary between the digital and physical being a really hard one to overcome. Okay, so I'm going add up each of our scores, subtract 6, divide by 24, multiply by 100 and then we'll have our P Doom. One moment. Okay Perry, are you ready for your calculated P Doom score from this informal ChatGPT assisted quiz?

Perry Carpenter: I am so ready. Doom me.

Mason Amadeus: Perry, your final calculated P Doom score is 38%.

Perry Carpenter: Oh, dang. That -- higher than I would have thought.

Mason Amadeus: Oh, really? So is mine. Mine's 54%, which I -- if I had to like estimate it without doing any thinking about it, I would probably say 50 because I --

Perry Carpenter: Really?

Mason Amadeus: -- I really think there's a coin flip of just --

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: -- there's so many factors.

Perry Carpenter: I -- I think for me it depends on like, what you mean when you say "doom." Like, I don't think the Skynet possibility is really there, but I do think it being a tool that society uses to inflict immeasurable harm on other bits of society and create distrust and everything else, I -- I think that that's the thing that I worry about the most.

Mason Amadeus: Yes, I -- I forget what philosopher it was, but we have to define what is, is, right? What is doom? What does --

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: -- doom look like? And again, that's a big --

Perry Carpenter: Right.

Mason Amadeus: -- multifaceted thing.

Perry Carpenter: Yes. So, is ultimately, is it a machine or is it us? And I think the P Doom is us.

Mason Amadeus: Yes, I think the P Doom is us. We made the machine, though. I do hope that you, our listener, don't leave this episode feeling too downtrodden, though, and feel instead empowered and armed with knowledge to try and make the world a better place. You're smiling [inaudible 00:53:34].

Perry Carpenter: Even though Mason has a quarter and is like about to flip it and decide if we all die.

Mason Amadeus: Yes, disregarding that. Don't worry. Don't worry. Everything's fine.

Perry Carpenter: Nothing. Nothing to see here. We'll -- we'll be back with some cheerier stuff next week.

Mason Amadeus: I mean, real talk though. We have so little control as two individual people. All you can do is all you can do and interact with like the small circle of influence you have to try and be good.

Perry Carpenter: Yes.

Mason Amadeus: That's it.

Perry Carpenter: Hey everybody, before we close out, if you're interested in things like understanding some of the existential threats, the way that I approach them, things like cognitive security and building your defenses, and you haven't checked out my book "FAIK: A Practical Guide to Living in a World of Deepfakes, Disinformation, and AI Generated Deceptions," you will want to go pick that up because it has everything that we are touching on and does actually empower you to have some control over the ecosystem that we're living in. So, with that, thanks so much for listening, and we will talk to you next week.

Mason Amadeus: Buy the book. It's very good.

Perry Carpenter: One out of one Mason, and one out of one Perry recommend it.

Mason Amadeus: Yes. [ Music ]