Another AI Take (So Brave)
Published December 14th, 2025
Likely only noticed by the Search Engine Spiders and the bots scraping my humble website, I have been in absentia for a moment. Among personal goings on I was also trying to repurpose an unpublished book titled, How to be Your Server’s Favorite into a new work, So You Want to Open a Restaurant? (working title, no infringement if that’s your published work)
Beyond this I have more insights from other projects that I was working on. AI rears its uncomfortable head once again, and while I am mildly optimistic about it having a use for operators of SMB Restaurants, I am finding myself far, far more afraid of its potential harms. So much so that I have been working on a white paper involving fraud and extortion in the modern era.
“Back to you, Fraud!”
As noted by the MIT study, and in my previous article, businesses at large are struggling to apply the technology appropriately. More accurately they are applying it to solve problems but usually at great cost and little to no return without intense R&D, and laser focused application. This report of course, was about a lot of different industries. You know one industry that isn’t having a problem leveraging AI tools? Crime. [1]
Mark these words. Consumers and SMBs are not ready for what is on the horizon. Sure, you might giggle a little at the lady swindled out of €800k who thought she was texting with Brad Pitt.[2] Sure! You saw the news of Asahi beverage facing a cyber attack that has, to this day crippled production. [3] You think to yourself, we’re not that dumb! We’re not that big!
Small to Medium Fish in a Very Big Pond
I’m not going to get into the nitty gritty of the work I am still doing; but the numbers are there, and they aren’t comforting. SMBs are becoming targets in professional hacking schemes, cyber extortion and general fraud. They are a lot easier to attack, lack the discipline and resources of Fortune 500 targets and the only thing that has spared them until now is hours in the day. [1]
It’s a lot more profitable to wage war against the big fish for a big payday. But the scamming industry world wide is growing. They’re automating tools, target selection, fishing and even extortion with AI. These tools are correcting bad English, altering photos, documents and voices.
Big fraud gets pursued. When you get held ransom for $1,000, I want you to ask yourself what or who is going to care? Does your local PD have the tools to deliver justice on this front?
Just another Naysayer
Restaurant fraud used to happen at the back of delivery trucks, the register and at the bar. Now it’s happening with charge backs on meals eaten by actual customers. It’s happening at reservation portals. It’s happening on review platforms. This is going to go live as a “draft” but the links will be here tomorrow or the day after. **The Guardian has write ups on the fraudulent charge backs, and review bombing. [4,5] Illinois itself has new legislation to outlaw reservation poaching and reselling. [6] Alpana, a restaurant opened by one of the youngest and brightest Master Somms was even recently attacked by review bombing in my Chicago local market. [7]
Profitable markets expand. I am calling the shot that scamming restaurants and their customers more widely and intensely is going to catch on when the guys at the call and spam centers are looking to grow their operations. The expansion will include easy to perpetrate and hard to chase down local criminals and inside actors.
Just as POS systems and owners caught on to the soda trick and countless other forms of skimming and fraud, there will be adjustments and people face punishment. But not all of them. And while many are okay with the idea that they can hit the lottery, or have that break through viral video, they are often less comfortable admitting that one disaster, even if covered by insurance could close their doors.
Police reports, Go Fund Me and delayed insurance payments are not an operating strategy.
https://go.crowdstrike.com/2025-global-threat-report.html? specific sections on small business highlighted
https://www.aol.co.uk/money/crippling-us-fraud-epidemic-hitting-120000118.html? **miss- attribution of original source
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2025/mar/15/north-wales-chef-loses-appetite-for-difficult-diners?
Sources finally added on the 30th with a note about an article from the aol.co.uk not the Guardian about charge backs from diners who were actually in the restaurant.