Chatbots powered by artificial intelligence (AI) are all the rage but be wary of downloading mobile apps that use the technology.
A new report finds that scammers are flooding app stores with software claiming to leverage OpenAI's ChatGPT. The apps often bring high subscription charges and feature intrusive advertising.
"AI apps have exploded since the emergence of generative AI and chatbots such as ChatGPT and Bard," Josh Davies, a marketing manager at the cybersecurity firm Fortra told Lifewire in an email interview. "Everyone is rushing to push their AI bot, and many have developed an AI application to perform certain functions like creating presentations, generating animations, or stock images. This explosion can make it very hard to tell the legitimate from the illegitimate, and makes it easier to accidentally download an illegitimate app, masquerading as a helpful new AI tool."
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New AI apps try to push users into paying subscription fees ranging from $9.99 to $69.99, according to the recent study by the cybersecurity firm Sophos. The apps also use tactics such as tightly limiting app usage and functionality without a subscription.
"Using a combination of advertising within and outside of the app stores and fake reviews that game the rating systems of the stores, the developers of these misleading apps are able to lure unsuspecting device users into downloading them, often with 'free trial' versions that then kick in automatic recurring subscription fees that users may not know are coming, or prompt them to buy a subscription to 'pro' versions that promise greater functionality but fail to deliver," the report's authors wrote.
The investigators looked at one iOS AI app on Apple's App Store. They found that the 'pro' features that users pay for are essentially the same as those available for free to registered users of ChatGPT.
"Mixed in with the thousands of brief four-star reviews are comments from people who downloaded the app and found it didn't work—either it only showed ads or failed to respond to questions when unlocked," according to the report. "One user reported that the reply to every message is 'Sorry, I could not understand your message.'"