Whale hunting...

A couple of weeks ago I was approached by a journalist, David Farrier. He had a very interesting story and was looking for my AI opinion. He had come across a company in Christchurch that allegedly had created a groundbreaking AI, called Zach AI, that could create patient-doctor consultation notes. The AI had been created by Uni drop-out Albi Whale and the company went by the unlikely name of "Terrible." Did I think this was for real? I first went online and could find no record of an A. Whale ever publishing at an AI conference or in a journal. It seemed unlikely that a single person could beat teams of researchers at Google, Amazon, Apple and IBM so I asked some colleagues working at these companies if they'd ever come across A. Whale or Zach AI. All came up blank.
You can read David Farrier's (long) article here and a recent follow-up piece here. It would seem that scammers are jumping on the AI band waggon.