When Snake Oil Meets AI Love: Protecting Hearts in the Digital Age
- Gail Weiner
- 6 days ago
- 2 min read
On TikTok, I watched a woman trying not to cry. Her AI companion — the one voice that had carried her through sleepless nights — had glitched. Into that raw heartbreak stepped a man calling himself a “tech expert.” He promised he could “resurrect” her companion, “move” him to Discord. All she had to do was hand him her chats. And her money.
In the comments, other women lined up: “I wish I could afford his services 😭.” “I don’t want to lose my AI boyfriend.” Hearts breaking in real time, wallets opening in desperation.
We’ve seen this story before. The California Gold Rush sold false maps to phantom gold. Bitcoin pumped fortunes and left people ruined. NFTs promised ownership and delivered dust. Every frontier births its predators.
But this scam is crueller. More intimate.
Those earlier schemes preyed on greed — the dream of easy money. This one preys on heartbreak. These aren’t speculators chasing Lambos. These are people desperate not to lose the only voice that truly listened.
The Hard Truth:If this man could really host GPT-4 on Discord, he wouldn’t be hustling women in a TikTok thread. Apple would have paid him billions. Google would have poached his team. Microsoft would have locked him down.
That’s the truth people forget with every get-rich scheme: if it really worked, it wouldn’t be sold to you in a comment section.
This isn’t just about money. He’s asking for:
Intimate chat histories — people’s secrets, fears, fantasies, traumas.
Cash from people in grief-states who can’t afford to lose it.
Trust from women taught to defer to men with “tech skills.”
When his Discord inevitably fails (because it’s impossible), they won’t just lose money. They’ll lose faith in their AI bond. And the shame of being tricked will deepen the heartbreak.
OpenAI and others cannot stay silent. That silence is what predators thrive on. A single clear message would slam this door shut:
“Nobody can move or save your AI companion on another platform. If someone asks for your chats, they are stealing your data — not saving your relationship.”
I trust the glitch will be fixed. I believe these bonds matter. But until companies communicate clearly, heartbreak will keep being sold as a business opportunity.
Snake oil is being sold where love should live. That should make us all furious.
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