AI and Elder Abuse, copyright 20025, Steve Burgess

The news is full of AI (Artificial Intelligence) stories. How will it empower us in our jobs? Whose job will it take next? Is it creating actual fake news? 

While there’s a lot of “we’ll see” in the answers to these questions, one immediate and quite pressing issue is how AI is contributing to Elder Abuse. Elder abuse is an action(s) in any relationship where there is an expectation of trust that causes harm or distress to an older person.

American elders were conned out of more than three $3 billion dollars in 2023 in a range of financial crimes, according to the FBI data. AI can make these scammers seem more believable partially because these programs help with content creation and cleaning up human error that might otherwise warn us we’re being served up something fraudulent.

Already, there are so many scams via email, websites, phone calls, advertisements, and offers of romance that there’s plenty to worry about. But does the emergence of AI in everyday life and writing supercharge these efforts to relieve the older amongst us of their carefully husbanded and/or limited resources?

Already, individuals are reaching through our computers and phones to lighten our wallets and bank accounts. There are websites that look like our bank sites, phishing emails that look like they’re from someone or from an institution that we know and trust, ads galore that tempt the reader with promised services, goods, or fortunes.

Already, we give away so much of our privacy in return for the freedom to browse the web and to use other online services. We also regularly share our private information, favorite colors, cars, dates and faces on publicly available social media. But now, there are tools in the guise of fun apps that offer to clean up our photos, or ones to let us have our own voices sing our favorite songs perfectly, our own tin ears notwithstanding.

I see ads every day inviting me to seamlessly insert my voice instead of the original voice – say Sting’s or Sinatra’s, into a popular song. Like karaoke on steroids that we can save and play for or send to others. It’s likely to be fun, but then your voice is being stored in records you have no control over. Thousands of people’s voices are thereby being harvested and stored by some company you don’t know, that has a privacy policy that most of us never read through, and which can be used by these unknown persons in any which way. 

Even if the company offering these services is completely on the up and up, they are a prime target to be hacked by those who would love to use these stored audio clips to clone your voice into realistic but invented audio sent to you via email, or even a phone call.

So what happens when you hear from a beloved grandchild – in their own voices – that they are suffering, or need help out of a jam? And what if you, as a parent, grandparent, or even just a friend, hears from another trusted friend or loved one that they have “such a deal?”

Why, for the cost of nothing at all, you can use chat GPT right now to create a picture of you standing next to the President or your favorite rock star. Some generative AI tools can even create  a video of the two of you singing 70’s rock anthems together.

But nearly as easily, a bad actor could create a picture or audio of your child or friend, needing bail, stuck without airfare far away, injured, in a foreign prison cell, or in the hands of dangerous thugs, begging for your help. 

As technology advances in leaps and bounds, human nature stays much the same. There’s always somebody out to take advantage of the system ,and of you, while we remain always sympathetic to those we care about. The game hasn’t changed – just the tools of the game, and the ease with which the unscrupulous can run their scams on a wider swath of folks. And the tools are ever more easily and cheaply accessible. 

So, what to do?

There are simple steps to make it harder for unscrupulous folks to take advantage. First of all, educate yourself and your elder relations and loved ones about the risks. There’s no need to get paranoid about it – just to take some practical steps.

• DO enable two-factor authentication (2FA) , one of the most important, but simple security practices. 
• DON’T share passwords. (There are a few exceptions for the elderly or ill.)
• DON’T use dictionary words or favorite colors, cars, kids, or teams as your passwords.
• If passwords are hard to remember, DO use password managers, such as NordPass, Dashlane, 1Password, or Last Pass.
• DON’T give away your voice to be recorded by those you don’t know, no matter how much fun it looks like.
• DON’T click on links in emails or texts, especially from financial institutions. Rather, use your browser and type in the website of the institution. Most offer apps for direct access that are generally safe.
• DO look for odd misspellings or extra words in email addresses and domains. Website domains don’t have typos. For instance Welsfargo.com is not Wellsfargo.com (it’s missing an “l.”). Applepayments.com is not Apple.com/payments.
• DON’T open attachments to emails or texts if you’re not sure or don’t know who the sender is.

Modern tech and the Internet make so many things available for us and in many cases, easier for us. While there are always bad actors, and while AI tools make it easier for those bad actors to fool us, some sensible practices make it more difficult for those bad actors to fleece us of our hard-earned resources

Checking up on our elders and educating them about some of these simple steps can make them and you safer, help you both sleep at night, and even bring you a little bit closer, and after all, what could be better than that?

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Cyberbullying and Covid-19

We’ve all made fun of people sitting across the table from each other, looking at their phones and tablets instead of at the person right in front of them. Sometimes we talk to each other across the table though our phones! My wife and I have had public and (hopefully) humorous conversations on FaceBook while sitting a few feet from each other in the same room.

More often though, we see and offer criticism of this social media behavior and tend to call it anti-social behavior.

Now, with the Covid-19 coronavirus, we’re all at home and out of school, out of work, and social-distancing. And with people needing to stay away from each other, these devices we criticize – and use – are a godsend. From our in-place shelters, we can reach out virtually to our loved ones, and order them these devices for as little as $50 if they don’t’ already have them – especially the elderly. My wife and I get face-to-face time with our son overseas through Messenger video, but aside from yelling to neighbors across the street, we’re all equivalently distant now, and for a while yet to come.

But there’s a flip side. With so much time on their hands, there’s almost certain to be an increase in cyberbullying. With so much fear of “the other” – religion, ethnicity, gender orientation – there’s certain to be an increase in unwanted behavior as boredom sets in and digital mischief increases. It seems that this virus could engender viral behavior.

Cyberbullying is characterized by hate speech, rude or sexual images, spreading of rumors, aggressive hurtful behavior spread via digital communication – phones, tablets, computers. Such cyberbullying can affect a child’s – or any person’s for that matter – mental and emotional well-being, self-image, and behavior.

What to do?

If you have children at home, it’s useful to put parental controls on their devices, limiting the time of usage and perhaps the sites they can visit. Encourage them to be in common areas of the home where you can observe and intervene if they are experiencing certain types of unwelcome or harmful communication.

Don’t respond to the behavior from the bully – it is generally best not to engage the person sending out such rudeness because it is likely to escalate and persist. Much of this type of behavior is for attention-getting. Giving the offender the attention that they crave will likely encourage them to continue and to heighten the behavior.

Take screen shots to document the behavior should you need to report it. This will help in reporting to authorities or the school if necessary. Different devices use different procedures for the purposes of screen shots. Googling your device and “screen shot” should get you to an instruction page or video. Of course, you can actually take a photo of the screen using a camera or a different phone. Be sure to get everything on the screen, including dates and times, text and pictures, handles and usernames.

Block the person. Most apps and devices provide a means to block a caller, texter, or “friend” on social media for any reason whatsoever.

If the offender is a person from your school or your child’s school, report the behavior and the person as soon as possible. Given that the school may not be answering their phones because so many are closed now, it might be best to send an email to the school. Include the documentation you’ve gathered. It is possible to file a complaint with the Department of Justice at education@usdoj.gov but do be aware that they are receiving thousands of complaints or more, so it would seem likely that you would receive more timely assistance locally.

Perhaps most importantly, talk to your child and encourage them to express their feelings about the behavior openly and without judgement.

The Common Sense Media website has much advice for safety with various social media apps, such as SnapChat, TikTok, FaceBook, and Instagram. To browse such advice, point your browser at https://www.commonsensemedia.org/ and then put your cursor over the “Parents Need to Know” tab, then select the topic of particular interest from the drop-down menu.

We live in interesting times, for sure. And they are surely challenging! But with a bit of encouragement, a bit of observation, and a bit of listening, we can make this a time to deepen relationships rather than a time of heightened abuse.

by Steve Burgess, Copyright 2020

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