Computer Says Maybe

Gotcha! is a four-part series on scams, how they work, and how technology is supercharging them — running through to October 10.
In the series we look at:
  1. Crypto: Mark Hays on how a thing touting financial freedom ended up being a kind of fin-cult, rife with scamming
  2. Multi-Level Marketing : Bridget Read on the history of the biggest and most successful type of scam that still plagues us today
  3. Generative AI: Data & Society’s primer on how generative AI is juicing the scam industrial complex
  4. Enshittification: Cory Doctorow on his upcoming book, and how the process of Enchittification represents user-hostile practices that scam people into paying more, and ecosystem lock-in

What is Computer Says Maybe?

Technology is changing fast. And it's changing our world even faster. Host Alix Dunn interviews visionaries, researchers, and technologists working in the public interest to help you keep up. Step outside the hype and explore the possibilities, problems, and politics of technology. We publish weekly.

Alix: [00:00:00] This is Gotcha. A four part series on scams, how they work and how technology is supercharging them.

Lana: Every single time there's a change in our communicative technology. There are new forms of illicit commercial activity.

Mark: The defining feature of that system is basically a way for wealthy people to control their money with impunity

Cory: platforms start to hemorrhage users, and then they panic, although they call it pivoting.

Cory: And they do all kinds of really dumb shit.

Bridget: And we're taught that it's good because we're all, you know, doing it together.

Alix: We've got Mark Hays on cryptocurrencies, Bridget Read on multi-level marketing, Alice Marwick and Lana Swartz on their scam, GPT primer. And finally, Cory Doctorow wrote on his upcoming book in ification,

Alice: if you go to X, you're seeing porn, you're seeing crypto ads, you're seeing like supplements.

Alice: You're seeing all of these like scam adjacent things.

Alice: I

Bridget: mean, it is literally. A story about [00:01:00] exploitation and selling that exploitation.

Mark: Actually, what you are creating is a global virtual, always on 24 7 offshore financial system accessible to anyone anywhere.

Lana: Looking at a history of scams is really looking at a shadow history of the economy and a shadow history of our communication systems.

Bridget: All of it is to obfuscate the fundamental relationship of, you know, labor and capital.