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AI chatbots outpace human scammers in trust-building phase of pig butchering fraud, study finds

8/2/2026

Tens of billions of dollars in annual fraud losses now have a more efficient engine.

AI chatbots can carry out the relationship-building phase of pig butchering scams at least as well as human operators, and by some measures better, according to a joint study from researchers at Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham, Foscari University of Venice, the University of Melbourne, and Ben Gurion University of the Negev.

What the researchers tested The four-university team ran a direct comparison of AI chatbots against human participants simulating the opening stages of pig butchering.

The term describes text-based romance fraud that eventually pivots to fake cryptocurrency investments, with individual victim losses reaching six figures.

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