They're kids, they need to be protected by their adults. You wouldn't let a child near a car or a firearm unless you could provide a safe education, and we need to be treating digital technology as equally as dangerous. Especially with the gamblification of everything.
Predators spend all their time, energy and resources perpetrating their scams. I'm sure adults fall for it just as much as kids do, the profitability of pig butchering scams is off the charts.
The solution is education; both for kids and adults alike. We all need dramatically more education in this space... both with what to watch out for, but also what to do when we're inevitably scammed - especially with GenAI making more convincing deep fakes.
Don't blame the kids, it's not their fault. The fault lies squarely on parents, teachers and law enforcement... as it would with any other crime.
The challenge is, many adults are conditioned these days too. Most of my friends don't truly admit the dangers, because it is more convenient not to.
I don't think I blamed the kids.
Also, on a related side note - wouldn't this be a place for AI? For instance for basic phishing scams to reduce profitability, an AI agent could identify and then engage with the scammer, leading them on and on but ultimately getting nowhere. Same for some of this explicit image phishing on kids phones - "if it looks explicit" do not share and add warning after warning.
Oh sorry, because you called them deviant natives and asked at the end if they'll ever learn, I thought you were putting the blame on the kids who got scammed.
I think your friends don't admit the dangers because of a lack of education... they may truly not understand just how dangerous it all is... I have to imagine they want to protect their kids however possible.
Yeah, this would be a great case for GenAI - although it'd pretty much be an arms race as the scammers also develop GenAI to defeat the protecting GenAI... until we all get exhausted and log off forever.
No. As said, their deviant behaviour is now mainstream behaviour. and if they will ever learn is a fair question - as you said, it is about education and most have had at least some education on this, but haven't learned. At least in Finland, digital education is part of the curriculum - they obviously haven't learned yet.
Even the parents who feed their kids junk food daily, say they want the best for their kids.
It is an arms race anyway. Who can create general intelligence and monopolise the entire market first.
It's truly hard to know how far away artificial general intelligence is, because that's the development that's all happening behind closed doors. It might already exist, it might be decades away or it might truly be impossible - who knows?
And on a side note - if thirty years ago one of your friends said that they give explicit photos of themselves to random people in the street, what would you have thought? :D
Did you ever see People magazine in Australia? It was super trashy and had a section where women could send in their nudes to be published.
I do think it's important to say that these scammers are grooming both kids and adults over weeks, months, years to get those photos. They're experts at slowly building trust... I genuinely think both you and I would fall for it too if we were single - it's what they do all day every day.