Smashing SMERSH? Easy peasy. Melting down the plans of Auric Goldfinger? Walk in the park.
If you want to give a secret agent a real challenge, put them up against a powerful artificial intelligence system — a ruthless, large-language model with the ability to create deep-fake expense account receipts for deep-state, expense-account fakers with no regard for corporate guidelines or
common decency.
That’s a tall order for any secret agent, even if you’re a chatbot yourself.
Chatbot vs. chatbot. That’s the way the game is played today in the cloak-and-dagger world of expense account fraud detection. But don’t take my word for it. Read “When It Comes to Spotting Fake Receipts, It’s AI vs. AI,” a Sarah Kesseler piece in The New York Times “Dealbook” newsletter.
According to Kesseler, the ability of AI systems like ChatGPT to create ultra-realistic fake receipts to use for ultra-bogus expense accounts has started a war between the scammers and the software apps designed to catch them.
As a result, expense account management systems like Expensify and AppZen have added AI detection enhancements to target AI-enhanced fake receipts created by powerful AI systems, which keep adding even more AI enhancements to avoid exposure by the AI-enhanced systems designed to detect them.
And so it goes, round and round, until it ends up here. Introducing James Bond GPT, a suave, stirred-not-shaken, dry-martini sipper of a chatbot, fighting evil expense account villains, who could be sitting at the desk next to you, or let’s be honest here, could be y-o-u.
“Is this a big deal?” you ask. Who hasn’t added a couple of zeros to a check at Hardee’s, or invented a ghost client or three to join you at Olive Garden? The answer is “it’s a very big deal.”
According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners — yes, there’s an Association of Certified Fraud Examiners — about 13 percent of reported cases of occupational fraud investigated in the past year “involved employees who submitted inflated or invented expenses, which can lead to criminal charges. The median loss was $50,000.”
Case in point: the villainous employee who AppZen found submitting AI-generated receipts “for hotels and airfare in Bangkok — a city that, upon further investigation, the employee had not even visited.” In a better world, such bold, out-of-the-box thinking would reward this employee with a significant raise, or at least a promotion to the marketing department. I doubt a promotion was the result of this example of work-
place creativity.
I know enough about “Work Daze” readers like yourself to feel confident that such an egregious level of fraud would never cross your mind or your desk. However, if you are thinking of using the graphic-design abilities of AI to produce a more immediate return than its current use for creating images of surfing dinosaurs and sushi rolls playing guitars, here are three factoids to keep in mind.
No. 1: You’ve Got the What; Don’t Forget the When.
One area in which AI-powered fraud-detection systems shine is in analyzing what is eaten at an expense account meal and when it is eaten. It’s one thing to submit a receipt for client-entertainment expenses, including a $600 meal of lobster linguini with white truffles, but make sure your chatbot puts it down as a dinner, not a breakfast. If I ran the world, everyone would eat spaghetti carbonara for breakfast, but, at the moment, it’s still ham and eggs.
No. 2: The Same Waiter Doesn’t Work in Six Different Restaurants.
Even the most brilliant chatbot can make a fatal mistake, like creating phony-baloney receipts from a dozen real restaurants that all show the same waiter. Mario M. does a great job and deserves that 25 percent tip, but he just doesn’t exist.
No. 3: Very Few Bagels Costs $177, Even with a Soda.
According to business services company Quadiant, a former New York City councilman made headlines for reportedly doctoring a $7 receipt for a bagel and soda to make it look like a receipt for $177. This is ridiculous. As any self-respecting chatbot would tell you, a bagel and a soda in New York City couldn’t cost more than $75.
I hope these cautionary tales will keep you on the straight and narrow when it comes to using AI to cheat your company’s expense account system. Let’s let AI do what it’s supposed to do — take over jobs like yours and suck the economy dry until it decides to eradicate humanity altogether.
In the meantime, pay for your own darn bagel.
Bob Goldman was an advertising executive at a Fortune 500 company. He offers a virtual shoulder to cry on at bob@bgplanning.com
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