"Greasing the wheels" seems right in principle, but possibly putting the accelerant factor a bit... mildly. Like going from burning the turkey in the oven, to deep frying and burning your whole house down.
> cybercrime losses across the United States rose 26 per cent in a single year
> The FBI was candid that even these figures understate the problem. AI attribution in the report reflects only what victims recognised and reported, and most victims of a cloned-voice call never learn that a machine was involved at all.
> INTERPOL found that AI-enhanced fraud is roughly four and a half times more profitable than its traditional equivalent, and that so-called agentic AI systems can now autonomously plan and execute entire fraud campaigns, from reconnaissance through to the ransom demand.
To build on your point, I have this comment I wrote months ago that I end up pasting (or pasting a bit altered) probably every week:
“Before LLM’s there was_____” I see this whenever an LLM’s impact is assessed. We know. The issue is scale and the ability for smaller and smaller groups (down to individuals) to execute at scale.
LLM’s are pouring massive amount of gasoline on existing issues and people just keep shrugging. Fake news always existed. Now one dude in India can flood multiple sock puppet media accounts with right wing content/images (actual example) at a scale previously unimaginable - or in this case, can target even more vulnerable elderly populations far more effectively.
People could always die crossing a street. Still, cars changed the discussion about pedestrian safety pretty materially. People didn’t simply throw up their hands and go “people have always been able to die crossing the street.”
Don't worry, it's all worth it so long as we can get braindead summaries we didn't ask for, pretend to be the 10x engineer we always wanted to be, and generate fake videos for internet points!
(sarcastic rant over)
Most of the benefits of AI are being overshadowed by the lack of regulation and reckless abandon at which they are being developed.
Given the current trajectory I don't know if that's going to change before it's too late.
And the crux of it all is people over promising and refusing to recalibrate expectations. LLM’s are kind of incredible, but we did not develop some magical tool that can do everyone’s job for them and/or answer every question with even semi-regular accuracy. it is a far more limited tool than any company, politician, or AI evangelist is willing to admit