This as-told-to essay is based on a conversation with Sandy McConnell, 80, who lives in Nevada. McConnell works as a full-time accounts receivable specialist, earning about $50,000 annually. She has $37 in savings and over $70,000 in debt, not including her house. Business Insider has verified McConnell's current income and financial situation with documentation. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Sometimes, I feel it's sad that people like me are still working so late in life, whether it be because we didn't manage money better, were never taught how to do so, or had circumstances that hindered our financial goals.

I have to work because I've been single since 1997 and have a house payment, a car payment, and high credit card debt. I didn't take a 401(k) with my current company because I thought it was stupid to; I need the money now, not 10 years from now.

On the other hand, if I didn't work, what would I do? I can't sit home all day — I would go nuts. Sure, I don't have the freedom to travel, but there are pros like keeping my brain active.

I started working as a teenager

When I was 16, I got my first part-time job as a cashier. I got married in 1962 and had a baby the following year. I tried going back to school, but I went to a Catholic school, and the nuns weren't having any of that. My husband was in the Navy, and I worked as a full-time checker while he was deployed.

When he came back, I became pregnant again. After having that child, I worked in another grocery store as the head cashier and at the customer service desk. Through the 1960s, I held a few other grocery jobs, doing accounts receivable for one and doing collections work for Sears Roebuck.

My last child was born in 1971. My husband left when my kids were little, and he wouldn't pay child support. Financially, I was always strapped, raising five children.

I went through the training to be a nurse's aide, but realized quickly it wasn't for me. With my experience in consumer collections, I got a job a few years later at a jewelry store as a credit manager. Then I became a credit manager at a construction company, a role I held for many years. I held various credit management jobs while in Las Vegas, such as for automobile, roofing, and lighting companies. I lost my job at a building supply company right before COVID hit.

I had to file for bankruptcy

I've always been living paycheck to paycheck and never had a lot in savings.

In 2001, I had 13 family members living with me due to unfortunate circumstances. They finally found work and got their own places, but that hurt me financially to the point where I've had to file for bankruptcy once in 2004 and most recently in October 2021.

In 2022, my youngest son was living with me. We had previously had a falling out, but when he said things weren't going well, I told him he always had a place to stay. After being out of work, he got a really good job as a city bus driver and was helping me financially.

One day, he never came home from work. He had collapsed from a massive heart attack.

My oldest son and my grandson came to live with me after that. My oldest son was constantly changing jobs. In December 2023, he had a major stroke and couldn't work, and I had to take out credit cards to support my grandson. That really set me back financially. My son didn't have insurance at the time, and I also had to make sure he had his medications and got to therapy.

He and his son moved back to Oklahoma to be with his dad in June 2024. My daughter moved in with me the following month due to a nasty divorce. She's doing great and has a good job. She helps me financially. I don't have anybody right now to have to take care of, except for myself and my dogs.

I've never thought I could retire

Now I find myself at 80 still needing to work. Part of that is financial, and part of it is because I would be bored; if you don't have any money to do anything with, what are you going to do? Your house can only get so clean.

I work as a full-time accounts receivable specialist. It's a very busy position, and I earn around $50,000 a year. I work from home, which I love. My company appreciates work-life balance, so if I need time off, they give it to me. I also get $1,784 in monthly Social Security.

I had 401(k)s from previous jobs, but I never had enough in them to be able to say, "I can retire." That's not going to happen.

I own my home, and I've been in it for 10 years. It's valued at around $400,000. If I sold it, I could retire, but if I do that, where am I going to go?

Debt, including everything except my house, is probably around $70,000. I'm trying to pay it down each month, but something always happens and I have to end up spending my money on something else. I put money in my bank account every month, but right now I have $37 in my savings account.

My credit is fairly good, and I'm satisfied with what I have. I'm more blessed than a lot of other people I know.

I make do with what I have

I have great-grandkids in town, so I like to visit and spend some time with them. Anything family-oriented is always great, whether it's going to somebody else's house, a dinner, or a barbecue. I like to take my dogs to the dog park when I can. Until last September, I walked a lot until I developed a couple of health problems that have prevented me from doing so.

Once a month, I go to lunch with my former coworkers at a company where I worked for 13 years. We go to an affordable restaurant and talk, cry, laugh, and remember the good times at our job.

Every night, I get online and play in my poker league. I don't play for money; I used to gamble, but I can't really do that anymore. I play for points, but I do pay for a $40 monthly membership. You earn tokens, which you can use to play in cash tournaments. I play in many charity tournaments, especially for autism.

I don't spend a lot. I like to shop at bargain stores, and I only buy reasonably priced things. I don't eat a lot, and I can get by with peanut butter sandwiches. I spend $150 to $200 at the grocery store monthly, and I do a lot of food prep. I spend about $100 on essentials like toilet paper, paper towels, and other items.

I can put $5 in my wallet, and it lasts me forever.

• John Calamos says young people need to work hard to succeed, but it's OK to change course in life.
• The billionaire investor and former Air Force pilot shared his advice for young people with BI.
• Calamos said that having a mission in life is vital, and wealth often comes as you work toward it.

Self-made billionaire John Calamos says the road to success can be steep and winding, and wealthy parents should teach their kids that finding meaning in life trumps money.

Calamos, 84, grew up in an apartment above his Greek-American family's grocery store, where he started working at a young age. He piloted jets during the Vietnam War before building his business empire. He's the founder of Calamos Investments, which manages assets worth more than $40 billion.

Calamos, who published a biography, "The Sky's the Limit," in April, shared his advice for young people and parents with Business Insider.

Forge your own path

Calamos joined the military after taking to heart President John F. Kennedy's appeal for people to "ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."

The convertible-bond pioneer has a similar message for graduates: "You don't get out of school now and say, 'OK, what is the government going to give me?'" he said. "It's not what the government's going to give you, it's what you can do."

Calamos said that he was able to become wealthy despite modest beginnings by being "creative, innovative." Being determined and having goals are key to achieving great things, he added.

In his book, he writes that young people shouldn't bow to pressure to specialize early, as he found value in a "more winding path."

Calamos started off as an engineering student, studied philosophy, switched to architecture, graduated with a degree in economics, then later earned an MBA.

"It's OK to change course as you learn more about yourself — what you truly care about and what ignites your passion," he writes.

Calamos added that it's crucial to keep learning, stay curious, and look for better ways to do things at every stage of one's career.

"This focus on continual improvement, innovation, and learning has been key to my own success," he writes.

Hard work and hustle

Calamos shared one of his biggest takeaways from his childhood and suggested how affluent parents might avoid raising entitled children.

"What I learned from my parents was just a work ethic," he told BI. "They worked hard all the time."

Calamos began working from a young age, first stocking shelves in his family's store, later delivering groceries and newspapers, washing windows, and more.

A parent's job isn't to simply hand money to their children, it's to instill in them the values of hard work and perseverance, he added. He said that the message should be, "It's not about the money, it's about the mission — the money is a byproduct."

• Microsoft is OpenAI's biggest investor but tensions between the two are boiling over.
• Key disputes include revenue splits, AGI triggers, and OpenAI's future acquisitions.
• Both sides say talks are ongoing and that they're optimistic about the future.

The stakes couldn't be higher for the most important AI relationship in tech.

OpenAI isn't just the highest-valued AI startup on Earth. It also has a "strategic partnership" with Microsoft that gives the tech giant access to its IP, a big cut of its revenue, and right of first refusal on any alternative cloud provider. Microsoft has earned that kind of power by plowing over $13 billion into OpenAI since 2019.

As OpenAI has boomed, tensions over the terms of the deal, which lasts until 2030, are boiling over. OpenAI has even considered reporting Microsoft to antitrust regulators for anticompetitive behavior, while Microsoft is threatening to walk away from talks entirely, throwing off OpenAI's fundraising plans, the Wall Street Journal and Financial Times reported last week, citing multiple anonymous sources.

There are many areas of disagreement to unpack. Whoever wins out could reshape the future of AI.

Microsoft sent BI a joint statement with OpenAI that their talks are "ongoing" and that both sides are "optimistic we will continue to build together for years to come." OpenAI didn't respond to a request for comment.

Money and equity are major sticking points

Under its agreement, Microsoft gets 20% of OpenAI's revenue, up to $92 billion, the FT reported based on people close to the discussions. That's a big cut, and — perhaps unsurprisingly — OpenAI wants to reduce it. In exchange, it's offering up Microsoft a bigger slice of itself.

The big question is how much equity OpenAI could give up to convince Microsoft to budge. The stakes under discussion range from as low as 20% to as high as 49%, according to the FT.

Shareholders of public companies like Microsoft tend to care more about revenue than stakes in highly unprofitable AI startups. That hurts OpenAI's case.

The 'AGI clause' is still contentious

OpenAI has promised to build what it considers a safe version of Artificial General Intelligence, or AGI, which is when AI overtakes humans at most tasks. OpenAI takes AGI so seriously that its contract with Microsoft says that if OpenAI achieves it, Microsoft loses their 20% cut of OpenAI's revenues and any access to new OpenAI technology.

AGI is a slippery concept, though, and figuring out when it's been achieved is tricky. OpenAI and Microsoft have defined it as the capability of OpenAI's systems to generate $100 billion in profits.

OpenAI is heavily unprofitable, according to documents reviewed by the New York Times. But that language about capabilities gives it some leeway to declare that it's reached AGI anyways.

It's no surprise, then, that Microsoft wants this clause removed in exchange for signing off on OpenAI's restructuring plans, which are essential for it to raise billions of dollars, according to anonymous sources cited by The Information.

It doesn't help the relationship that Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella doesn't think AGI is a big deal or coming anytime soon, irritating OpenAI's top brass, according to another WSJ report based on unnamed sources. Nadella even called AGI "nonsensical benchmark hacking" in a podcast earlier this year.

Windsurf is sharpening tensions

OpenAI reached an agreement to buy the coding assistant startup Windsurf for a cool $3 billion in May, undisclosed sources told Bloomberg. Windsurf competes directly with Microsoft Copilot.

That makes its IP valuable to Microsoft, which would have access to it under its current contract — but neither Windsurf nor OpenAI want that, BI previously reported.

Instead, they want Windsurf to be exempted from Microsoft's IP rights. That raises the risk of Microsoft missing out on IP from future OpenAI acquisitions, something OpenAI hasn't been shy about.

Windsurf declined to comment for this article. It remains independent and is not owned by OpenAI.

OpenAI's messy structure is causing further issues

OpenAI is burning through billions of dollars a year and needs to raise billions more to keep itself going. Its unusual corporate structure — it's controlled by a nonprofit — has led to substantial fundraising struggles, BI previously reported.

A major ace up Microsoft's sleeve is that OpenAI needs its approval for a restructuring plan that would let it fundraise without further issues. SoftBank has conditioned $10 billion in funding on this restructuring, it disclosed.

On Friday, SoftBank CEO Masayoshi Son said at a shareholder meeting that he intends to go "all in" on Artificial Superintelligence — a level even more advanced than AGI.

Son added that he'd wanted to invest in OpenAI in its early days, but ended up losing out to Microsoft.

Florida Rep. Byron Donalds has raised $22 million for his gubernatorial bid since entering the race, a sum that dwarfs any of the two dozen rivals in the race, according to his campaign.

Why it matters: The fundraising helps cement Donalds' status as the odds-on favorite to win the GOP primary in which he has a priceless asset: President Trump's endorsement.

• People are already saying, "Hey, governor," to Donalds, his wife told Politico Florida Playbook in Monday's edition.

The intrigue: Donalds on Tuesday will stand side-by-side at a Florida press conference with Trump and termed-out Gov. Ron DeSantis, who has wanted his wife, Florida First Lady Casey DeSantis, to run for his office.

• DeSantis became embittered with Donalds in 2023 when the congressman didn't endorse him in his failed bid for president and instead backed Trump in his successful reelection campaign.
• DeSantis has dissed Donalds publicly for being a no-show in state culture war issues. 
• Donalds has refrained from clapping back and publicly praises the governor.

Zoom in: Donalds raised $12 million immediately after he announced his bid Feb. 26 and then pulled in an additional $10 million in the just-ended second quarter, his campaign said.

• Contributors to his political and campaign committees include a number of big name former donors to DeSantis, including billionaires Thomas Peterffy, Dick Uihlein and Nebraska Sen. Pete Ricketts.
• Other notable contributors include Tyler and Cameron Winklevoss, entrepreneurs known for their Facebook battle against Mark Zuckerberg.

Zoom out: Florida is such a red state now that whoever wins its primaries for statewide office is the heavy favorite to carry the state in the general election.

• Active registered Republican voters outnumber Democrats by about 1.3 million in the state.
• Republicans control every statewide seat now.
• Democrats' biggest name in the race used to be a Republican: former Rep. David Jolly, who recently announced his campaign and is touring the state talking about insurance reform and affordability.

Congress has gotten so miserable that the traditional "I'm sad to leave" has now become "not a hard choice" to retire. Why it matters: Exhausted lawmakers are choosing retirement over bipartisan dealmaking that their own parties clearly don't want.

• Sen. Thom Tillis (R-N.C.) announced his retirement on Sunday. "I haven't exactly been excited about running for another term," Tillis said in a statement. "It's not a hard choice, and I will not be seeking re-election."
• Tillis capped off his retirement day by savaging the "big, beautiful bill" for its cuts to Medicaid and renewable energy tax credits.

Rep. Don Bacon (R-Neb.) said Monday he won't run again. Bacon is one of just three House Republicans who won in congressional districts won by Vice President Harris in 2024.

• In his retirement announcement, Bacon bragged about his record on bills that became law.

Zoom out: The trend line is scary for fans of working across the aisle.

• Sens. Mitt Romney, Joe Manchin and Kyrsten Sinema chose to retire in 2024, citing the difficulty of getting bipartisan deals done in Congress.
• Before they left, a bipartisan deal on immigration collapsed in 2024 after then-former President Trump urged Republicans to kill the bill, and Democrats with competitive races also voted it down.
• In this term, a bipartisan deal on groundbreaking crypto regulation nearly collapsed after Democrats demanded it include language targeted at the Trump family's crypto empire.

What to watch: Sen. Susan Collins' (R-Maine) re-election race is currently rated "lean Republican" by The Cook Political Report.

• In Alaska, fellow moderate GOP Sen. Lisa Murkowski isn't up for re-election and is ruthlessly focused on helping her state. That even includes entertaining the longshot possibility of caucusing with Democrats if they create a 50-50 tie after the midterms.
• In Texas, Republicans are freaked out by the prospect of Sen. John Cornyn losing his primary. He's facing firebrand Texas AG Ken Paxton, who would have a much tougher time in a general election.

What's next: Republicans are carefully watching the Louisiana Senate race. Sen. Bill Cassidy is expected to face numerous GOP primary challengers.

• Cassidy is one of just three GOP senators (along with Collins and Murkowski) still serving who voted to convict Trump in an impeachment trial.

The "big, beautiful bill" slashes food and health benefits for the poorest Americans, while giving tax cuts to higher earners — blowing a hole in the nation's safety net, according to healthcare experts and advocates for lower-income people.

Why it matters: Experts say the cuts could unleash a tidal wave of pain — overcrowded emergency rooms, an increase in chronic health care issues, more medical debt, and more folks going hungry.

• If the $4 trillion bill passes into law, it would be the biggest cut to the social safety net in decades, as the Washington Post noted.

State of play: It's hard to know exactly where the bill will land, but it's on track to cut 20% of spending on food stamps, or SNAP, with more than 2 million losing benefits, per an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office provided to Senate Democrats.

• Cuts to Medicaid could lead to nearly 12 million people losing health insurance, per the CBO.
• Changes to the Affordable Care Act could lead to losses for millions more; others would face higher healthcare costs.

There's massive overlap here — nearly 30 million of the 38.3 million people receiving SNAP in 2022 were also enrolled in Medicaid, notes KFF.

• It's a double-whammy: these folks would need more for healthcare, while being further stretched on groceries.

By the numbers: The bottom 20% of earners would see a nearly 3% decline in income, about $700, under the Senate version of the bill. That's per a new analysis from the Yale Budget Lab, which takes into the social safety net changes into account.

• The top 1 percent would see a nearly 2% increase, or $30,000.

The intrigue: Many of the losses in Medicaid and SNAP coverage are the result of new work requirements that opponents say are actually red tape thickets that typically lead people to lose benefits — even those who are working.

• Proponents argue that work requirements for able-bodied adults help "reduce unnecessary enrollments in welfare," as this Heritage Foundation report explains.

The other side: The White House and Congressional Republicans say work requirements are just a common-sense way to reduce waste, fraud and abuse.

• "By slashing waste, fraud, and abuse in these programs and implementing commonsense work requirements, The One, Big, Beautiful Bill will preserve these vital lifelines for generations of Americans to come," White House spokesman Kush Desai said in a statement.
• "The bill's pro-growth provisions and working class tax cuts will turbocharge America's economic resurgence."
• The White House also argues that the Congressional Budget Office's assumptions about Obamacare changes are overblown.

💭 Emily's thought bubble: Beginning in 2020, when Trump was in office, the federal government unleashed a torrent of money in social safety net spending that continued into the Biden era. It drastically reduced poverty rates in the U.S.

• That era appears to be well in the rearview.

• Trump is suggesting that DOGE take a look at Elon Musk's business contracts with the government.
• He said the US could "save a fortune" if there were "no more rocket launches, satellites."
• His comments came after Musk slammed his "big, beautiful bill."

President Donald Trump suggested that the Department of Government Efficiency — an initiative Elon Musk spearheaded — look into slashing government contracts with Musk's companies.

"No more Rocket launches, Satellites, or Electric Car Production, and our Country would save a FORTUNE. Perhaps we should have DOGE take a good, hard, look at this? BIG MONEY TO BE SAVED!!!" Trump wrote on Truth Social.

Trump also suggested that Musk might have to "close up shop" and return to South Africa, where he was born. Musk has been a US citizen since 2002.

The Department of Government Efficiency was, until April, headed by Musk.

Trump's comments come after Musk reignited their feud by criticizing the president's proposed "Big, Beautiful Bill," which proposes cuts to Medicaid, removal of taxes on tips and overtime, and axes tax credits for electric vehicles.

Musk has not responded to Trump's latest jab on slashing his government contracts. He has, in the meantime, vociferously opposed the spending priorities outlined in the bill, and threatened to start a new political party if it passes in the Senate.

On Saturday, Musk wrote on X that the president's proposed bill "will destroy millions of jobs in America and cause immense strategic harm to our country."

"Utterly insane and destructive. It gives handouts to industries of the past while severely damaging industries of the future," he said.

This is at least the second time Trump has threatened to end Musk's contracts since their very public falling-out in June.

"The easiest way to save money in our Budget, Billions and Billions of Dollars, is to terminate Elon's Governmental Subsidies and Contracts. I was always surprised that Biden didn't do it!" Trump wrote in June, at the start of their feud.

Responding to the jab, Musk wrote on X that SpaceX "will begin decommissioning its Dragon spacecraft immediately." He walked back the comment a few hours later.

SpaceX works closely with NASA, and the Dragon spaceships are used to ferry NASA astronauts and supplies to and from the International Space Station.

Representatives for Trump and Musk did not respond to requests for comment from Business Insider.

Sometime last year, Ian Lamont's inbox began piling up with inquiries about a job listing. The Boston-based owner of a how-to guide company hadn't opened any new positions, but when he logged onto LinkedIn, he found one for a "Data Entry Clerk" linked to his business's name and logo.

Lamont soon realized his brand was being scammed, which he confirmed when he came across the profile of someone purporting to be his company's "manager." The account had fewer than a dozen connections and an AI-generated face. He spent the next few days warning visitors to his company's site about the scam and convincing LinkedIn to take down the fake profile and listing. By then, more than twenty people reached out to him directly about the job, and he suspects many more had applied.

Generative AI's potential to bolster business is staggering. According to one 2023 estimate from McKinsey, in the coming years it's expected to add more value to the global economy annually than the entire GDP of the United Kingdom. At the same time, GenAI's ability to almost instantaneously produce authentic-seeming content at mass scale has created the equally staggering potential to harm businesses.

Since ChatGPT's debut in 2022, online businesses have had to navigate a rapidly expanding deepfake economy, where it's increasingly difficult to discern whether any text, call, or email is real or a scam. In the past year alone, GenAI-enabled scams have quadrupled, according to the scam reporting platform Chainabuse. In a Nationwide insurance survey of small business owners last fall, a quarter reported having faced at least one AI scam in the past year. Microsoft says it now shuts down nearly 1.6 million bot-based signup attempts every hour. Renée DiResta, who researches online adversarial abuse at Georgetown University, tells me she calls the GenAI boom the "industrial revolution for scams" — as it automates frauds, lowers barriers to entry, reduces costs, and increases access to targets.

The consequences of falling for an AI-manipulated scam can be devastating. Last year, a finance clerk at the engineering firm Arup joined a video call with whom he believed were his colleagues. It turned out that each of the attendees was a deepfake recreation of a real coworker, including the organization's chief financial officer. The fraudsters asked the clerk to approve overseas transfers amounting to more than $25 million, and assuming the request came through the CFO, he green-lit the transaction.

Business Insider spoke with professionals in several industries — including recruitment, graphic design, publishing, and healthcare — who are scrambling to keep themselves and their customers safe against AI's ever-evolving threats. Many feel like they're playing an endless game of whack-a-mole, and the moles are only multiplying and getting more cunning.

Last year, fraudsters used AI to build a French-language replica of the online Japanese knives store Oishya, and sent automated scam offers to the company's 10,000-plus followers on Instagram. The fake company told customers of the real company they had won a free knife and that all they had to do was pay a small shipping fee to claim it — and nearly 100 people fell for it. Kamila Hankiewicz, who has run Oishya for nine years, learned about the scam only after several victims contacted her asking how long they needed to wait for the parcel to arrive.

It was a rude awakening for Hankiewicz. She's since ramped up the company's cybersecurity and now runs campaigns to teach customers how to spot fake communications. Though many of her customers were upset about getting defrauded, Hankiewicz helped them file reports with their financial institutions for refunds. Rattling as the experience was, "the incident actually strengthened our relationship with many customers who appreciated our proactive approach," she says.

Rob Duncan, the VP of strategy at the cybersecurity firm Netcraft, isn't surprised at the surge in personalized phishing attacks against small businesses like Oishya. GenAI tools now allow even a novice lone wolf with little technical know-how to clone a brand's image and write flawless, convincing scam messages within minutes, he says. With cheap tools, "attackers can more easily spoof employees, fool customers, or impersonate partners across multiple channels," Duncan says.

Though mainstream AI tools like ChatGPT have precautions in place when you ask them to infringe copyright, there are now plenty of free or inexpensive online services that allow users to replicate a business's website with simple text prompts. Using a tool called Llama Press, I was able to produce a near-exact clone of Hankiewicz's store, and personalize it from a few words of instructions. (Kody Kendall, Llama Press's founder, says cloning a store like Oshiya's doesn't trigger a safety block because there can be legitimate reasons to do so, like when a business owner is trying to migrate their website to a new hosting platform. He adds that Llama Press relies on Anthropic's and OpenAI's built-in safety checks to weed out bad-faith requests.)

Text is just one front of the war businesses are fighting against malicious uses of AI. With the latest tools, it takes a solo adversary — again with no technical expertise — as little as an hour to create a convincing fake job candidate to attend a video interview.

Tatiana Becker, a tech recruiter based in New York, tells me deepfake job candidates have become an "epidemic." Over the past couple years, she has had to frequently reject scam applicants who use deepfake avatars to cheat on interviews. At this point, she's able to discern some of their telltale signs of fakery, including a glitchy video quality and the candidate's refusal to switch up any element of their appearance during the call, such as taking off their headphones. Now, at the start of every interview she asks for the candidates' ID and poses more open-ended questions, like what they like to do in their free time, to suss out if they're a human. Ironically, she's made herself more robotic at the outset of interviews to sniff out the robots.

Nicole Yelland, a PR executive, says she found herself on the opposite end of deepfakery earlier this year. A scammer impersonating a startup recruiter approached her over email saying he was looking for a head of comms, with an offer package that included generous pay and benefits. The purported person even shared with her an exhaustive slide deck, decorated with AI-generated visuals, outlining the role's responsibilities and benefits. Enticed, she scheduled an interview.

During the video meeting, however, the "hiring manager" refused to speak, and instead asked Yelland to type her responses to the written questions in the Microsoft Teams chat section. Her alarm bells really went off once the interviewer started asking her to share a series of private documents, including her driver's license.

Yelland now runs a background check with tools like Spokeo before engaging with any stranger online. "It's annoying and takes more time, but engaging with a spammer is more annoying and time-consuming; so this is where we are," she says.

While videoconferencing platforms like Teams and Zoom are getting better at detecting AI-generated accounts, some experts say the detection itself risks creating an vicious cycle. The data these platforms collect on what's fake is ultimately used to train more sophisticated GenAI models, which will help them get better at escaping fakery detectors and fuel "an arms race defenders cannot win," says Jasson Casey, the CEO of Beyond Identity, a cybersecurity firm that specializes in identity theft. Casey and his company believe the focus should instead be on authenticating a person's identity. Beyond Identity sells tools that can be plugged into Zoom that verify meeting participants through their device's biometrics and location data. If it detects a discrepancy, the tools label the participants' video feed as "unverified." Tramèr Florian, a computer science professor at ETH Zurich, agrees that authenticating identity will likely become more essential to ensure that you're always talking to a legitimate colleague.

It's not just fake job candidates entrepreneurs now have to contend with, it's always fake versions of themselves. In late 2024, scammers ran ads on Facebook for a video featuring Jonathan Shaw, the deputy director of the Baker Heart and Diabetes Institute in Melbourne. Although the person in it looked and sounded exactly like Dr. Shaw, the voice had been deepfaked and edited to say that metformin — a first-line treatment for type 2 diabetes — is "dangerous," and patients should instead switch to an unproven dietary supplement. The fake ad was accompanied by a fake written news interview with Shaw.

Several of his clinic's patients, believing the video was genuine, reached out asking how to get a hold of the supplement. "One of my longstanding patients asked me how come I continued to prescribe metformin to him, when 'I' had said on the video that it was a poor drug," Shaw tells me. Eventually he was able to get Facebook to take down the video.

Then there's the equally vexing and annoying issue of AI slop — an inundation of low-quality, mass-produced images and text that is flooding the internet and making it ever-more difficult for the average person to tell what's real or fake. In her research, DiResta found instances where social platforms' recommendation engines have promoted malicious slop — where scammers would put up images of items like nonexistent rental properties, appliances, and more that users were frequently falling for it and giving away their payment details.

On Pinterest, AI-generated "inspo" posts have plagued people's mood boards — so much so that Philadelphia-based Cake Life Shop now often receives orders from customers asking them to recreate what are actually AI-generated cakes. In one shared with Business Insider, the cake resembles a moss-filled rainforest, and features a functional waterfall. Thankfully for cofounder Nima Etemadi, most customers are "receptive to hearing about what is possible with real cake after we burst their AI bubble," he says.

Similarly, AI-generated books have swarmed Amazon and are now hurting publisher sales.

Pauline Frommer, the president of the travel guide publisher Frommer Media, says that AI-generated guidebooks have managed to reach the top of lists with the help of fake reviews. An AI publisher buys a few Prime memberships, sets the guidebook's ebook price to zero, and then leaves seemingly "verified reviews" by downloading its copies for free. These practices, she says, "will make it virtually impossible for a new, legitimate brand of guidebook to enter the business right now." Ian Lamont says he received an AI-generated guidebook as a gift last year: a text-only guide to Taiwan, with no pictures or maps.

While the FTC now considers it illegal to publish fake, AI-generated product reviews, official policies haven't yet caught up with AI-generated content itself. Platforms like Pinterest and Google have started to watermark and label AI-generated posts, but since it's not error-free yet, some worry these measures may do more harm than good. DiResta fears that a potential unintended consequence of ubiquitous AI labels would be people experiencing "label fatigue," where they blindly assume that unlabeled content is therefore always "real." "It's a potentially dangerous assumption if a sophisticated manipulator, like a state actor's intelligence service, manages to get disinformation content past a labeler," she says.

For now, small business owners should stay vigilant, says Robin Pugh, the executive director of Intelligence for Good, a non-profit that helps victims of internet-enabled crimes. They should always validate they're dealing with an actual human and that the money they're sending is actually going where they intend it to go.

Etemadi of Cake Life Shop recognizes that for as much as GenAI can help his business become more efficient, scam artists will ultimately use the same tools to become just as efficient. "Doing business online gets more necessary and high risk every year," he says. "AI is just part of that."

Shubham Agarwal is a freelance technology journalist from Ahmedabad, India, whose work has appeared in Wired, The Verge, Fast Company, and more.