AI incident ·
Comedy Writer Bruce Vilanch Reportedly Sent Money in Purportedly AI-Assisted Scam Impersonating Fresh Air Host Terry Gross
On this page 6 sections
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 on record for this risk area
No instrument on record yet covers this risk area where it happened. See the open queue.
Matched from the record's risk category and country to the instruments in effect recorded here: a law listed covers the area, which is not a finding that it applies to this incident. 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
- —
- Risk subdomain
- —
- Causal entity
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- 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