AI Just Destroyed the Internet?

A few weeks ago, one of my subscribers sent me a message that initially seemed like a pretty ordinary warning.

Someone was impersonating me on YouTube.

Apparently, scammers had created accounts using usernames and profile pictures that looked like mine. They were leaving comments on other people’s videos pretending to be me, offering investment advice and inviting people into WhatsApp and Telegram groups.

Now, fortunately, some of the scams were hilariously obvious.

Bad grammar. Weird phrasing. The sort of thing where you look at the comment and immediately think:

“Yeah… Asian Dad Energy would never write this.”

Except then I found some that were much more convincing.

Much more disturbing.

I found entire conversation threads where scammer bots were using phrases, words and mannerisms that I actually use.

They weren’t simply copying and pasting some generic scam message.

They were responding to people.

They were following the conversation.