The authors coined a new term, "vibercrime," for what AI actually does for criminals: it speeds up cheap scams but doesn't create new hackers.

Many fear chatbots will turn anyone into a hacker. Nearly 100,000 AI-related threads on cybercrime forums show something duller the authors call vibercrime: AI as a handy helper, not a crime-gang-in-a-box.

Beginners still rely on ready-made hacking scripts, and AI coding help mostly saves time for people who can already code. The bigger change is volume: more spam sites, bot accounts, and scam messages that sound human.