Description: Comedy writer Bruce Vilanch reportedly received highly personalized messages impersonating Terry Gross, host of NPR's Fresh Air, and sent money after being asked to support NPR. He discovered the invitation was fraudulent when Gross did not appear for the scheduled interview. Reporting described the broader fake-podcast scheme as likely AI-assisted, though no specific AI system was identified.
Entities
View all entitiesAlleged: Large language model developers developed an AI system deployed by Scammers and Scammers impersonating Terry Gross, which harmed Bruce Vilanch , Terry Gross , WHYY , NPR , public figures , Epistemic integrity and Targets of fraudulent professional opportunities.
Alleged implicated AI system: Large language models
Incident Stats
Incident ID
1663
Report Count
2
Incident Date
2026-08-18
Editors
Daniel Atherton
Incident Reports
Reports Timeline
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When Seth Rudetsky received an invitation to appear on Nikki Glaser's podcast, he had no particular reason to think it wasn't real.
Rudetsky, the Broadway performer and SiriusXM host, gets asked to do podcasts all the time. Better yet, this…
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An email offering an interview with Terry Gross may sound like a career-making opportunity. But a string of messages using the name of the longtime "Fresh Air" host has instead led recipients into an increasingly elaborate scam.
Authors, en…
Variants
A "variant" is an AI incident similar to a known case—it has the same causes, harms, and AI system. Instead of listing it separately, we group it under the first reported incident. Unlike other incidents, variants do not need to have been reported outside the AIID. Learn more from the research paper.
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