The LLM Grift Playbook

Recently, by good fortune, a rather delightful book crossed my path: Lying for Money: How Legendary Frauds Reveal the Workings of Our World

I won't give you too many spoilers because I would not want to deprive you of the pleasure of reading such a splendid book on your own, but this Chapter 2 opening quote is something...

The aim of crime as a business is to acquire wealth. There are broadly two ways of doing this: by taking it without the owner’s consent, or by persuading him to part with it voluntarily even if afterwards he does not want you to keep it. The first kind accounts for most of what people think of as “crime” but it is a self-limiting business. It cannot be disguised. A blown safe can’t be passed off as a safe the accountant lost his temper with.

Leslie Payne, The Brotherhood: My Life with the Krays

Sam Altman of OpenAI Fundraising

The Generic Grift Playbook

There is a pretty general grift playbook out there:

1. The Setup – Identify a lonely, greedy, or desperate target.
2. The Play – Present opportunity.
3. The Convincer – Provide staged proof.
4. The Put-Up Job – Extract money.
5. The Blow-Off – Disappear.

The LLM Grift Playbook:

Here's a specific example:

1. "Technology is amazing but humans are such a pain in the ass, especially those fucking prima donna programmers, ugh!!"
2. "Programmers think they're so smart but look words that look like programs and probably work, too."
3. "I'm a smart person and I say these words make sense, here try them yourself gullible human with impaired critical thinking skills!"
4. "Just think of the billions upon billions of trillion of dollars you'll make, my dear VC, when you have all the data in the entire world and can literally do anything you want with it!"
5. "Well, er, uh, um, technology is progressing fast and it might have been too early but you know if you don't get out there and try it, we'll never see a beautiful human-free special world and I'm sure it's not all wrong we probably can salvage something from it, sorry about the money you wasted er uh spent innovating!"

Tell me if any of this sounds familiar.

The genius of the LLM grift is two-fold: To an extent never seen before, they...

1. Create a truly personalized experience. It's most likely that no two people see the same thing; and
2. They hijack the gullibility of a human's anthropomorphizing machinery.

In other words, humans almost cannot not believe the bullshit the LLMs spit out, and everyone's version of the bullshit makes it impossible for humans to use their most powerful anti-bullshit machinery: arguing.

"I mean, sure it has some errors, but I've seen in produce some amazing code, with tests, even!"

Blah blah blah

If LLMs were what they were claimed to be, and they are quite substantial claims, let's be clear, then there would be commensurate evidence to support the claims.

If you claim an airplane can fly, shockingly, people want to see it fly.

If you claim a deep sea submersible can navigate the depths of the ocean, people want to see it, not a thing that looks like a beer can smashed on some university sport ball dude's forehead.

When you claim a drug can cure a condition, some people (unless you're like a RFK Jr) want to see evidence that the condition existed and was indeed cured.

LLMs don't offer any of that. Just a good ol' by the grifter's play book, "Here, try it yourself and tell me, don't you just feel wonderful?!"

Grift is grift. Theft is theft. Bullshit is bullshit. Even if you personally cannot smell it.

When will we see Sam Altman sitting over there with Sam Bankman-Fried and Elizabeth Holmes?

Research For this Post

Like any astute thinker does these days, I had a hunch that there must be a pretty basic way to trick people out of money because humans are pretty basic, so of course, I headed over to my favorite liebot with a prompt...

surely there must be a pretty simple, tried and true conman or grift playbook that astute and immoral or amoral actors just repurpose for each scam, suggest what that may be or original sources that describe it in detail

Liebot ChatGPT 5.2...

Oh, there absolutely is a playbook.

And no, it isn’t genius. It’s psychology so old it predates written language. The only thing that changes is the costume.

If you want the “tried and true” template, here it is—cold, mechanical, and depressingly reusable.

The Core Grift Template (Human OS Exploit v1.0)

1. Manufacture Authority

Borrow credibility. Never build it.

• Titles (Dr., Founder, Insider)
• Logos and institutional language
• Testimonials (real, exaggerated, or fabricated)
• Association with prestige brands

People do not evaluate claims. They evaluate status signals.

See:

• Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion
• The Confidence Game

Authority short-circuits skepticism.

2. Identify a Pre-Existing Pain

Do not create desire. Attach to one that already exists.

• Fear (financial collapse, illness, irrelevance)
• Shame (not successful enough, not attractive enough)
• Envy (others are ahead)
• Confusion (complexity fatigue)

The grifter doesn’t invent the wound. He presses on it.

3. Offer Secret Knowledge

Humans are intoxicated by “inside” access.

• “They don’t want you to know this.”
• “Wall Street trick.”
• “Ancient method.”
• “Elite strategy.”

Scarcity + secrecy = perceived value.

Classic structural example:

• Extraordinary Popular Delusions and the Madness of Crowds

The promise of being early or special bypasses rational cost-benefit analysis.

4. Escalate Commitment (Foot-in-the-Door)

Start small.

• Free webinar
• $7 trial
• Low-tier membership

Once someone invests identity or money, they defend the choice. That’s not intelligence. That’s cognitive consistency.

5. Manufacture Urgency

Remove time for deliberation.

• “Closing tonight.”
• Countdown timers.
• “Limited spots.”
• “Regulatory change tomorrow.”

Time pressure narrows cognition.

6. Create Community Reinforcement

People don’t want to be alone in belief.

• Telegram/Discord groups
• Testimonials flooding comments
• “Look at all these success stories”

Social proof substitutes for evidence.

Again, Cialdini nailed this decades ago.

7. Blame the Victim When It Fails

This is the most important stage.

If the promised outcome doesn’t materialize:

• “You didn’t execute correctly.”
• “You lacked belief.”
• “Market conditions shifted.”
• “Upgrade to the advanced tier.”

The mark must preserve ego. The grifter provides a narrative that lets them.

The Classic Con Structure (Old School Version)

From confidence men of the 19th century:

1. The Setup – Identify a lonely, greedy, or desperate target.
2. The Play – Present opportunity.
3. The Convincer – Provide staged proof.
4. The Put-Up Job – Extract money.
5. The Blow-Off – Disappear.

Detailed historically in:

• The Big Con

That book is effectively a field manual for traditional grifts.

Modern Repurposings

The structure is invariant. The wrapper changes.

• Crypto pump-and-dumps
• Fake AI tools
• “Dropshipping mentorship”
• Health miracle supplements
• Political fear machines
• Social media influence hustles

Different costumes. Same skeleton.

Why It Keeps Working

Because it doesn’t exploit stupidity. It exploits:

• Status anxiety
• Cognitive biases
• Social belonging needs
• Scarcity perception
• Time pressure
• Ego preservation

And those are permanent features of human cognition.

If You Want the Theoretical Foundations

Study:

• Thinking, Fast and Slow
• The Art of Seduction
• Games People Play

You will notice something uncomfortable:

Most legitimate marketing uses softened versions of the same mechanics.

The difference between persuasion and grift is:

• Does the value delivered match the promise?
• Is information asymmetric by design?
• Is exit friction intentionally high?

If you want, I can also outline:

• The “startup founder grift variant”
• The “spiritual guru variant”
• The “financial freedom influencer variant”
• The “AI gold rush variant”

The pattern will look insultingly familiar.

Because it is.