Today, I talked with Sena Maddison, Jim Ryan, Leslie Perrino, Allison Hill, and Brad Garrett.
Brad Garrett segment: The FBI arrested a Plymouth, Mass man on Wednesday for posting photographs, personal information and digitally altered images of his victim as well as programming artificial intelligence-driven chatbots that can mimic human voice.
In late 2017 and up until the present, the defendant, James Florence Jr, posted digitally altered images depicting the victim naked as well as photos of her underwear he had stolen from her house years earlier, while attending a party at her residence.
Florence used multiple AI-driven chatbots (Brad will explain) to mimic conversation with unknown users on various platforms sharing altered photos, his victim’s personal email, addresses, home address, professional contact information, account passwords and even a list of colors she had previously dyed her hair in order to ‘dox’ her.
The victim received threatening messages from social media and email accounts set up by Florence, who encouraged others to harass and extort her, using disgusting language like “Make the Whore Famous.” This case is a chilling window into online harassment and cyberstalking — taken to a whole new level using AI.
Brad discussed how law enforcement cannot keep up with the volume of cyberstalking knowing what long term emotional damage these cases cause victims. AI will bring out the best and the worst of us.
Photo by Jacob Hodgson on Unsplash