(Ken Silva, Headline USA) Wired published an article on Thursday about how police departments are using artificial intelligence-powered bots posing as real people online—interacting with a variety of targets, from legitimate criminals to political activities.
“Massive Blue, the New York–based company that is selling police departments this technology, calls its product Overwatch, which it markets as an ‘AI-powered force multiplier for public safety’ that ‘deploys lifelike virtual agents, which infiltrate and engage criminal networks across various channels,’” Wired reported, citing government documents it obtained via public records requests.
“Massive Blue is offering cops these virtual personas that can be deployed across the internet with the express purpose of interacting with suspects over text messages and social media.”
404 Media obtained a presentation showing some of these AI characters. These include a “radicalized AI” “protest persona,” which poses as a 36-year-old divorced woman who is lonely, has no children, is interested in baking, activism, and “body positivity.” pic.twitter.com/cElC2pondA
— WIRED (@WIRED) April 17, 2025
According to Wired, Massive Blue lists “border security,” “school safety,” and stopping “human trafficking” among Overwatch’s use cases.
Internal records from Massive Blue reportedly reveal a variety of AI fake personalities used by law enforcement.
For instance, there is a “radicalized AI” “protest persona” that poses as a 36-year-old divorced woman who is lonely, has no children, is interested in baking, activism, and “body positivity,” Wired reported.
Another AI persona is reportedly described as a “‘Honeypot’ AI Persona.”
“Her backstory says she’s a 25-year-old from Dearborn, Michigan, whose parents emigrated from Yemen and who speaks the Sanaani dialect of Arabic. The presentation also says she uses various social media apps, that she’s on Telegram and Signal, and that she has US and international SMS capabilities,” Wired reported.
Other AI bots include a 14-year-old boy “child trafficking AI persona,” an “AI pimp persona,” “college protestor,” “external recruiter for protests,” “escorts,” and “juveniles,” Wired added.
Massive Blue cofounder Mike McGraw reportedly did not answer questions posed by Wired about his dystopian product. Instead, he issued a statement about being proud of his work.
“We are proud of the work we do to support the investigation and prosecution of human traffickers,” McGraw told Wired. “Our primary goal is to help bring these criminals to justice while helping victims who otherwise would remain trafficked. We cannot risk jeopardizing these investigations and putting victims’ lives in further danger by disclosing proprietary information.”
There are no known arrests involving the use of fake online personalities. The report does raise grave questions about the extent to which internet users are being manipulated by fake AI accounts run by law enforcement and intelligence agencies.
Ken Silva is the editor of Headline USA. Follow him at x.com/jd_cashless.
