Tech News: When artificial intelligence facilitates crime

JOHANNESBURG - Artificial Intelligence (AI) is one of the important building blocks of the Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) or the age of "intelligentisation." The past few years have seen tremendous advances in machine learning and the building of algorithms from data; deep learning simulating the human brain and the processing power and decreasing costs of powerful and fast computers. Intelligent devices are, therefore, increasingly finding their way into our lives, whether it is a personal assistant such as the Amazon Alexa, Google Home, Apple Siri or Samsung Bixby; satellite navigation; real-time language translation; biometric identification such as fingerprint, iris or facial recognition; or industrial process management and decision-making. Unfortunately, noble AI technology also has the possibility to be misused and exploited for criminal purposes. In 2016 two computational social scientists by the name of Seymour and Tully used AI to convince social media users to click on a phishing link within a mass-produced message.