👑 Teens are addicted to pawn

It can be exciting to know that people in every profession are looking at AI and imagining ways it can revolutionize the way they work — until you remember spamming is also a profession.

Think today’s junk-ducking obstacle course (say, repeatedly silencing “Unknown Caller” and hitting “Report Junk” on a half-dozen fake UPS delivery texts every day) is a headache? Keep some ibuprofen handy — you’re not gonna love the AI-powered future of spam.

Enabled by generative AI, spammers will be better equipped to get their messages in front of people — also meaning their nefarious counterpart, scammers, will be better equipped to squeeze susceptible populations, warns computer science expert John Licato in The Conversation.

More tools, more fools

This How-To Geek article on teaching ChatGPT how to write in one’s personal writing style feels different through the lens of the classic “trick people into thinking their boss is emailing them” scam.

And that’s just the start of the tricksters’ paradise ahead, per The Conversation:

• Current spam filters will need to be remade; while AI can sharpen new anti-spam tools, it can also be used to evade them.
• AI will help cyberpests better target individuals — able to more easily tap into subjects’ personal data (ahem, social media), spammers’ and scammers’ persuasion skills will magnify.

Convincing voice and image generation add yet another extortion tool for criminals, as proven by this AI-enabled kidnapping scheme every mom in the world breathlessly shared on Facebook this month.

Pouring gasoline on a nuclear explosion

Cybersecurity firms are on the case and OpenAI is agreeable on setting guardrails, but trying to stay ahead of (increasingly emboldened) bad actors would be an expensive game of Whac-A-Mole.

Training models to register spam, expanding ID-verifying programs, and educating users are all resource-intensive work.

And they’re up against a tough opponent: cybercrime is a booming, if mega-illegal, industry. If it continues to grow at its current 15% YoY rate, the global annual toll will hit $10.5T by 2025.

Just goes to show: Teach a man to phish, you’ll unfortunately feed him for a lifetime.

Did you log on to Chess.com after watching Netflix’s “The Queen’s Gambit” just to make sure you weren’t an undiscovered chess prodigy?

Us, too (we weren’t, so we’re still writing this newsletter). But, according to The New York Times, the youths persevered with the hobby long after we toppled our queens.

And we’re not just talking a handful of nerds

Since November, the number of Chess.com daily active users has surged from 5.4m to 11m+.

• The biggest growth came from players ages 13-17, and 549k of them used the site in January and February (18-24 is the second-fastest-growing age group).
• A site record of 31.7m chess games were played on Jan. 20.

While Chess.com lets users play for free, paid plans ranging from $4.17 to $10/mo. offer features like educational videos, unlimited lessons and puzzles, and game reviews.

What’s driving the surge?

It started how most trends do — with influencers. In 2020, the site began hosting tournaments with prominent influencers like xQc, Ludwig, and MrBeast.

Then came the chess streamers: GothamChess, GMHikaru, and Alexandra Botez have millions of followers who watch their live Twitch streams for thousands of hours each week.

And, in December, Chess.com acquired the Play Magnus Group, a chess company founded by world champion Magnus Carlsen.

Plus, the chess tea is piping hot

There’s Hans Niemann’s butt controversy, the ongoing beef between him and Carlsen, and the World Chess Championship, happening in Kazakhstan right now. And, of course, Mittens the cat.

If all of that’s not enough to blow your mind, we present to you: chess boxing.