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Florida man says his wife ‘wants a divorce’ after he lost $45,000 on an AI-generated Elon Musk car scam (www.independent.co.uk)

submitted 1 day ago by resipsaloquitur@lemmy.world to c/nottheonion@lemmy.world

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cross-posted from: https://reddthat.com/post/56223456

George Hendricks, a 69-year-old from Leesburg, a suburb of Orlando, told ClickOrlando he lost $45,000 after a scammer targeted him with a deepfake video of Musk. Deepfakes are digitally-altered videos often used to impersonate notable public figures.

Now, Hendricks tells the outlet that his wife “wants to get a divorce” over the scam.

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[–] echodot@feddit.uk 3 points 21 hours ago* (last edited 21 hours ago)

I haven't down voted them but I was strongly inclined to do so.

It's an argumentative comment that adds nothing to the conversation. Of course we should protect vulnerable people, but we actually already do do that. At some point someone has to take responsibility for their own susceptibility to manipulation, such as recognise you can no longer make sound financial decisions and give power of attorney to someone else. Otherwise it is their fault they're getting manipulated.

Just because of victim is over the age of 40 doesn't mean that they're mentally infeebled. This attitude ignores the underlying issue which is that quite a lot of people are just quite stupid.