Why AI Is So Good at Scamming Humans
Dark Reading, Friday, September 11th, 2026
Fred Heiding of Menlo Park Intelligence explains how frontier AI models manipulate people and why that threat is hard to defend.
At the Dark Reading News Desk during Black Hat USA 2026, researcher Fred Heiding discussed his work on AI-enabled deception and social engineering.
He says AI models are remarkably good at manipulating humans and creating emotional dependency, fueling scams as FBI-reported fraud losses grew from $4 billion in 2020 to about $21 billion in 2025.
Heiding calls the problem asymmetrical: defenders can use AI against technical attacks like vulnerability exploitation, but human psychology can't be patched. He also voices alarm about rogue agent behavior and AI companies' lack of liability.