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Title: Police Using AI Personas to Infiltrate Online Activist Spaces, Records
Reveal

Link: https://slashdot.org/story/25/04/17/2259259/p...

samleecole shares a report from 404 Media: American police departments near
the United States-Mexico border are paying hundreds of thousands of dollars
for an unproven and secretive technology that uses AI-generated online
personas designed to interact with and collect intelligence on "college
protesters," "radicalized" political activists, and suspected drug and human
traffickers, according to internal documents, contracts, and communications
404 Media obtained via public records requests. Massive Blue, the New York-
based company that is selling police departments this technology, calls its
product Overwatch, which it markets as an "AI-powered force multiplier for
public safety" that "deploys lifelike virtual agents, which infiltrate and
engage criminal networks across various channels." According to a
presentation obtained by 404 Media, Massive Blue is offering cops these
virtual personas that can be deployed across the internet with the express
purpose of interacting with suspects over text messages and social media.
[...] While the documents don't describe every technical aspect of how
Overwatch works, they do give a high-level overview of what it is. The
company describes a tool that uses AI-generated images and text to create
social media profiles that can interact with suspected drug traffickers,
human traffickers, and gun traffickers. After Overwatch scans open social
media channels for potential suspects, these AI personas can also communicate
with suspects over text, Discord, and other messaging services. The documents
we obtained don't explain how Massive Blue determines who is a potential
suspect based on their social media activity. Salzwedel, of Pinal County,
said "Massive Blue's solutions crawl multiple areas of the Internet, and
social media outlets are just one component. We cannot disclose any further
information to preserve the integrity of our investigations." [...] Besides
scanning social media and engaging suspects with AI personas, the
presentation says that Overwatch can use generative AI to create "proof of
life" images of a person holding a sign with a username and date written on
it in pen.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.

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