Latest news with #LotiAI
Malay Mail
19-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Malay Mail
No, that's not Keanu Reeves asking for money — but his AI doppelganger is — and he's had enough
LOS ANGELES, July 19 — Keanu Reeves may not be on social media, but that hasn't stopped scammers from turning him into one of the most impersonated celebrities online. According to The Hollywood Reporter, the Matrix and John Wick star is paying thousands of dollars a month to a Seattle-based company, Loti AI, to track and remove fake accounts pretending to be him across platforms like TikTok, Facebook and Instagram. With his blessing, the company's founder Luke Arrigoni revealed they've issued nearly 40,000 takedown requests on Reeves' behalf over the past year. 'He cares very much about how his fans are treated, and he's very invested in trying to solve this problem,' Arrigoni reportedly said. A reporter for The Hollywood Reporter went undercover to investigate one of the scams. While the real Reeves was walking the red carpet with girlfriend Alexandra Grant at the John Wick spinoff Ballerina premiere, a fake account named Keanu_Reeves68667 tried to coax the journalist into paying US$600 (RM2,547) for a bogus 'VIP' fan club membership, promising an in-person meet-up. The actor's widespread appeal — and his almost mythical off-grid persona — have made him an easy target for online manipulation. 'Pretty much everybody everywhere on Earth likes [him],' the reporter noted, adding that his lack of personal social media makes it harder for fans to distinguish real from fake. Scammers have used Reeves' likeness for everything from romance grifts to political messages. In one fake image, he appears to endorse Donald Trump. In another, he seems to support awareness campaigns for indigenous children who were victims of abusive boarding schools in Canada. Most of these images are photoshopped from a Getty photo of Reeves at a motorcycle event in Italy in 2017. Loti AI typically gets platforms to remove fake accounts within 48 hours, but that's often enough time for fraudsters to inflict serious harm. As The Hollywood Reporter highlighted, the FBI reported nearly US$672 million in losses from romance and confidence scams in 2024 — with older adults particularly vulnerable. One case involved a 73-year-old woman who lost nearly US$100,000 to a scammer pretending to be Kevin Costner. She was convinced to send bitcoin deposits for a fake film project, lured in by messages offering companionship during a difficult time. At one point, the fake Costner even sent a photo holding a handwritten sign that read: 'It's really me Kevin Costner. I love you so much… I can't wait to meet you.' For his part, Reeves is doing what he can to protect others from similar heartbreak — even if it means fighting an invisible, AI-fuelled army one fake account at a time.
WIRED
12-06-2025
- Business
- WIRED
AI Agents Are Too Cheap for Our Own Good
Jun 12, 2025 7:00 AM AI tools cost a fraction of human labor—and may undermine the jobs needed to build careers. Illustration: Jacqui VanLiew In 2007, Luke Arrigoni, an AI entrepreneur, earned $63,000 at his first job as a junior software developer. Today, he says AI tools that write better code than he did back then cost just $120 annually. The numbers don't sit right with him. Arrigoni, who runs Loti AI, a company that helps Hollywood stars find unauthorized deepfakes, worries that underpriced AI tools encourage companies to eliminate entry-level roles. He wants to flip the incentive structure so people's careers don't end before they begin. 'If you make the AI systems more expensive, then you have an economic incentive to hire someone that is starting out,' he says. AI transforming—or altogether eliminating—jobs has become a perennial anxiety. But the concern is gaining new urgency as demand for AI agents grows. Those AI systems can now make sales calls and write software code, work that was once reserved for humans. So far, the situation isn't dire. Hiring platform ZipRecruiter estimates that this year, summer internships in the US rebounded to roughly the same level as they were before the pandemic. But that might change in the near future. At the Snowflake Summit in San Francisco last week, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman compared current AI tools to interns. The next-generation technology would be like a more 'experienced' worker, he said. In some companies, managers have already started overseeing 'a bunch of agents' the way they traditionally have 'relatively junior employees,' Altman claimed. OpenAI has talked about mitigation efforts like reskilling programs to stave off a potential jobs crisis—but it hasn't mentioned charging higher prices for its services to slow the transition to AI work. That's what has Arrigoni on edge. Even after accounting for the priciest add-on features, AI coding agents cost a fraction of a junior engineer. If inexperienced workers can't get a gig, Arrigoni believes, they might not gain the expertise needed to lead future teams—whether human or machine. OpenAI did not respond to a request for comment. 'Less Than Human' AI pricing has fluctuated since ChatGPT launched as a free chatbot in 2022 and triggered an AI boom. Generally, many AI companies still offer free tiers for limited use, and prices for basic tiers have declined. Top-tier plans for the newest features have grown pricier, though not to the point of generating profits for the companies offering them—or deterring adoption. Startup executives and pricing consultants attribute low prices to intense competition among AI purveyors. 'Their only way to win is mass adoption,' says Ajit Ghuman, CEO of pricing strategy company Monetizely. That means AI companies need to charge the same affordable prices as their rivals. Unless electricity or GPU shortages become major problems, or one company corners the AI market, it's difficult to see prices rising significantly, Ghuman says. Decagon, a San Francisco startup that sells a customer service chatbot used by retailers and tech companies, charges $1 or less per conversation—roughly half the cost of human support. In some cases, the chatbot may be more effective than a person, but Decagon believes its clients would never pay more for it. 'The reason to invest in AI is efficiency,' CEO Jesse Zhang says. 'You're going to be less than human labor. That's kind of like the point of technology.' Zhang says his company makes money on each individual conversation after excluding certain overhead costs, but he declined to comment on the startup's overall profitability. With $100 million raised from venture capitalists including Andreessen Horowitz and Accel, Decagon has the flexibility to prioritize growth over profitability. 'Whether we could be pricing more, it's always like a 'what if?'' he says. 'But in general we're pretty happy right now.' 'So Cheap' Erica Brescia, a managing director at the investment firm Redpoint Ventures, had an epiphany about AI agent pricing last month. The $250 price tag on Google's new AI Ultra plan astounded her. 'All this is so cheap,' she recalls thinking. 'It's disproportionate to the value people are getting.' She felt a price of at least double would make more sense. (That same week, Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang told Stratechery that he would hire an AI agent for $100,000 per year 'in a heartbeat.' ) Previously, Brescia worked as the chief operating officer of GitHub, which helped set the bar for AI pricing. GitHub's Copilot coding assistant started at $10 a month in 2022, months before ChatGPT's debut. Brescia says GitHub went with a price that would attract a critical mass of users. The goal was gathering data to improve the service, and GitHub's parent company, Microsoft, didn't mind taking a loss on the new tool to make that happen. In reality, a price 100 times higher would now better reflect the value Copilot provides to software developers, Brescia estimates. (GitHub chief operating officer Kyle Daigle tells WIRED that the company's goal is to support, not replace, developers and that 'pricing reflects a commitment to democratizing access to powerful tools.') Today, Copilot tops out at $21 a month. And similar tools have followed its lead, including Zed, which has received $12.5 million in funding from Redpoint and others. In May, the company started charging a minimum of $20 a month for an AI-assisted code editor it built from the ground up. Zed CEO Nathan Sobo expects AI companies to charge more over time because the current pricing models aren't sustainable. But relative to humans, he wants to keep AI agents affordable so anyone can use them to augment their work, develop better software, and create new jobs. 'I want as much intelligence at my disposal at as low a cost as possible,' he says. 'But to me, included in that is potentially a junior engineer using this technology, ideally at as low a cost as possible.' Decagon's Zhang feels the same way about AI coding tools. 'Would we pay more? Marginally? Yeah,' he says. But '$2,000? Probably not.' He adds 'the hunger for good engineers is infinite.' AI entrepreneurs suggest that agents could command higher prices if they were easier to set up and more reliable to use. For instance, Nandita Giri, a senior software engineer who has worked at Amazon, Meta, and Microsoft, says she would pay thousands of dollars annually for an AI personal assistant. 'But strict conditions apply—you can't get frustrated by using it,' she says. Unfortunately, that day feels far away. As a personal project, Giri tried developing an AI agent that could prevent psychological burnout. 'It just canceled all my meetings,' she says. Certainly a solution, but not the ideal one. Now, some companies are hiring 'AI architects' to help oversee agentic systems and cut down on gaffes. The question is who will occupy those roles in the future if early-career workers are cut off from opportunities today. Simon Johnson, an economist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, doesn't expect companies to take into account the social cost of career disruption in making their pricing decisions. He suggests governments lower payroll taxes for entry-level roles to encourage hiring. 'The right lever to pull is one that reduces costs to employers,' Johnson says. Arrigoni is choosing a third path. At Loti AI, he has prioritized steadily hiring junior engineers and hasn't employed AI coding tools. If the job apocalypse comes, 'I don't want to be at fault,' he says.
Yahoo
20-03-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Deepfake Detection Firm Loti AI Expands Access For All Users: 'These Threats Are No Longer Limited to Celebrities' (EXCLUSIVE)
Deepfake detection and takedown service Loti AI revealed that its likeness protection technology is being made publicly available. Previously only offered to public figures and celebrities, the company will now offer tools to anyone 'who wants to safeguard their digital reputation.' 'The internet is getting out of hand, and people's digital reputations are at risk like never before,' said Loti AI CEO Luke Arrigoni. 'From deepfakes to unauthorized illicit content, these threats are no longer limited to celebrities. That's why Loti AI is stepping up to offer everyone tools to take control of their digital identity.' More from Variety A Quarter of All Broadcasters Now Using AI, More Than Doubling Last Year, New Report Finds Ahead of PGA Awards, Guild Says Fighting Runaway Production Is Top Priority: 'We Have to Stand Up and Fight for Los Angeles' AI Was Nearly Used to Recreate the French Voice of Sylvester Stallone. Now, European Dubbers Are Doubling Down on the Need for Protection Loti Ai, which was founded in 2022, will offer free and paid membership options on a rolling basis. The platform scans the internet daily, looking for deepfakes, impersonations, and other misleading unauthorized content. Users have the choice to automate takedowns or handle them individually. The company claims that users of its auto-takedown functionality saw a 95% takedown rate within 17 hours. 'Whether you're an everyday person or a high-profile individual, you should be able to protect your image and personal data online,' Arrigoni said. 'Our goal is simple: to help you reach zero—zero images of you online that you haven't approved.' In addition to online protection, Loti AI's scans also find authorized images, like old photos and videos that could hold sentimental value. Users can sign up at or download the Loti AI app. Last fall, entertainment marketing and production firm Dolphin partnered with Loti AI to provide its subsidiaries — businesses including 42West, The Door, Shore Fire, Special Projects and Elle Communications — access to Loti's tools. The firm also provides feedback to assist Loti (which also has a partnership with WME) in further developing and expanding use of its services. Best of Variety New Movies Out Now in Theaters: What to See This Week Oscars 2026: First Blind Predictions Including Timothée Chalamet, Emma Stone, 'Wicked: For Good' and More What's Coming to Disney+ in March 2025
