
80: “Dark Side of the Boom” Author Patrick Coughlin on AI Scams
On this episode of the Washington AI Network podcast, host Tammy Haddad talks with Savi Security co-founder and CEO Patrick Coughlin, author of “Dark Side of the Boom: How Scammers Hijack the AI Revolution,” about how AI has made sophisticated, personalized scams cheap enough to target ordinary families, not just high-value government or corporate victims. They dig into why digital fraud — now estimated at nearly $200 billion in annual U.S. losses — has become the fastest-growing crime in the country, why Meta reportedly earns 10% of its revenue from fraudulent advertisers, and why Coughlin thinks federal "know your customer" rules for AI access, not a state-by-state patchwork, are the fix Washington keeps avoiding.





