AI incident ·
Comedy Writer Bruce Vilanch Reportedly Sent Money in Purportedly AI-Assisted Scam Impersonating Fresh Air Host Terry Gross
In brief
An AI system built by Large Language Model Developers and deployed by Scammers and Scammers Impersonating Terry Gross allegedly harmed Bruce Vilanch, Terry Gross and 5 others.
- Risk domain
- Not classified
- Occurred
- Coverage
- 2 reports
What happened
Comedy writer Bruce Vilanch reportedly received highly personalized messages impersonating Terry Gross, host of NPR's Fresh Air, and sent money after being asked to support NPR. He discovered the invitation was fraudulent when Gross did not appear for the scheduled interview. Reporting described the broader fake-podcast scheme as likely AI-assisted, though no specific AI system was identified.
Laws that address this harm
No recorded instrument yet addresses this use case where it happened. See the open queue.
Matched from the record's risk domain and country to the instruments recorded here. A reviewer can correct the match in the repository (data/external/incident_overrides.yaml).
News reports (1)
Titles link to the original publisher; report text is not reproduced here.
Who was involved
- Alleged deployer
- Scammers, Scammers Impersonating Terry Gross
- Alleged developer
- Large Language Model Developers
- Alleged harmed party
- Bruce Vilanch, Terry Gross, Whyy, Npr, Public Figures, Epistemic Integrity, Targets Of Fraudulent Professional Opportunities
Classification (MIT AI Risk Repository taxonomy)
- Risk domain
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- Risk subdomain
- —
- Causal entity
- —
- Intent
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- Timing
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- Harm level
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- Sectors
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- Countries
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Source record: incident #1663 on the AI Incident Database · all 2 reports