{"id":6029,"date":"2025-10-17T20:16:19","date_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:16:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/police-warning-kids-ai-prank\/"},"modified":"2025-10-17T20:16:19","modified_gmt":"2025-10-17T20:16:19","slug":"police-warning-kids-ai-prank","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/police-warning-kids-ai-prank\/","title":{"rendered":"Police Issue Warning About \u201cAI Homeless Man\u201d Prank"},"content":{"rendered":"<div>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">AI-powered deepfake tech has come a very long way.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">Unsurprisingly, teens have been using the tech to prank their friends and family. The latest hoax involves kids sending their parents AI-manipulated pictures of them welcoming homeless men into their houses \u2014 prompting widespread alarm and even 911 calls, as <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/tech\/tech-news\/ai-homeless-man-prank-social-media-prompts-concern-local-authorities-rcna236550\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>NBC News<\/em> reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-rich is-provider-twitter wp-block-embed-twitter\">\n<div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<blockquote class=\"lazy-twitter-tweet\" data-tweet-id=\"1973481955040829471\" data-width=\"550\" data-dnt=\"true\">\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\" lang=\"en\" dir=\"ltr\">This new AI homeless man trend is fantastic had to get my wee sister to try persuade her not to actually call the polis <img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/16.0.1\/72x72\/1f602.png\" alt=\"\ud83d\ude02\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em;max-height: 1em\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/16.0.1\/72x72\/1f602.png\" alt=\"\ud83d\ude02\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em;max-height: 1em\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/16.0.1\/72x72\/1f602.png\" alt=\"\ud83d\ude02\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em;max-height: 1em\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/s.w.org\/images\/core\/emoji\/16.0.1\/72x72\/1f602.png\" alt=\"\ud83d\ude02\" class=\"wp-smiley\" style=\"height: 1em;max-height: 1em\"> <a href=\"https:\/\/t.co\/XmAITmcZJT\">pic.twitter.com\/XmAITmcZJT<\/a><\/p>\n<p>\u2014 Isla (@FfsHibs) <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/FfsHibs\/status\/1973481955040829471?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw\">October 1, 2025<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">The trend shows how widespread highly sophisticated generative AI tools have become, foreshadowing a future in which you can\u2019t believe even imagery from friends and family. Case in point, countless videos on social media involve youngsters boasting about how they terrified their parents or friends with the help of AI.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">\u201cNo, I don\u2019t know him,\u201d one disgruntled father messaged their son in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.tiktok.com\/@mmmjoemele\/video\/7557837328165768479?q=%23homelessmanprank&amp;t=1760630685283\" rel=\"nofollow\">one TikTok video<\/a> that got millions of views. \u201cWhat does he want?\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">\u201cHe said you guys went to school together, I invited him in,\u201d the son replied, posting an AI-edited image of a man sitting on presumably the family\u2019s couch.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">\u201cJOE PICK UP THE PHONE,\u201d the alarmed parent replied. \u201cI DON\u2019T KNOW HIM!!!!!\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">The prank has gained so much momentum that law enforcement is now issuing warnings, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nbcnews.com\/tech\/tech-news\/ai-homeless-man-prank-social-media-prompts-concern-local-authorities-rcna236550\" rel=\"nofollow\"><em>NBC News<\/em> reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">\u201cBesides being in bad taste, there are many reasons why this prank is, to put it bluntly, stupid and potentially dangerous,\u201d the Salem, Massachusetts police department wrote in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salemma.gov\/CivicAlerts.aspx?AID=183\" rel=\"nofollow\">statement<\/a>. \u201cThis prank dehumanizes the homeless, causes the distressed recipient to panic and wastes police resources.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">A <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/photo\/?fbid=1203007021867526&amp;set=a.230156742485897\" rel=\"nofollow\">press release<\/a> by the Oak Harbor police department in Washington also warned of \u201csafety concerns\u201d related to an \u201c\u2018AI homeless man\u2019 prank.\u201d Circulating images made it look like a \u201chomeless individual was present on the Oak Harbor High School Campus.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">\u201cAI tools can create highly convincing images, and misinformation can spread quickly, causing unnecessary fear or diverting public safety resources,\u201d the statement reads.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">Some are warning that the prank may go far beyond wasting police resources as well.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">\u201cWe want to be clear: this behavior is not a \u2018prank\u2019 \u2014 it is a crime,\u201d the Brown County, Ohio sheriff\u2019s office wrote in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/permalink.php?story_fbid=1114490404194698&amp;id=100069012466270&amp;ref=embed_post\" rel=\"nofollow\">post<\/a><strong> <\/strong>on Facebook, following a separate incident. \u201cBoth juveniles involved have been criminally charged for their roles in these incidents.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">It\u2019s not just the United States, either. British teens are also using AI tools to prank their parents or friends, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/c98ezep0plno\" rel=\"nofollow\">according to the <em>BBC<\/em><\/a>, with local law enforcement warning to check if distressing pictures are a prank before calling the cops.<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\">\u201cYou know, pranks, even though they can be innocent, can have unintended consequences,\u201d Round Rock, Texas, police department commander Andy McKinney told <em>NBC<\/em>. \u201cAnd oftentimes young people don\u2019t think about those unattended consequences and the families they may impact, maybe their neighbors, and so a real-life incident could be happening with one of their neighbors, and they\u2019re draining resources, thinking this is going to be fun.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"article-paragraph skip\"><strong>More on generative AI:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/artificial-intelligence\/sora-ai-mock-dead\"><em>People Are Using OpenAI\u2019s Sora to Mock the Dead<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n<p>The post <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/artificial-intelligence\/police-warning-kids-ai-prank\">Police Issue Warning About \u201cAI Homeless Man\u201d Prank<\/a> appeared first on <a href=\"https:\/\/futurism.com\/\">Futurism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div style=\"margin-top: 0px; margin-bottom: 0px;\" class=\"sharethis-inline-share-buttons\" ><\/div>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>AI-powered deepfake tech has come a very long way. Unsurprisingly, teens have been using the tech to prank their friends and family. The latest hoax involves kids sending their parents&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[177,3841,3842],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-artificial-intelligence","category-ethics","category-future-society"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6029"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6029\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/musictechohio.online\/site\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}