PIG BUTCHERING

Project Summary:

Pig butchering scams involving romantic tactics using social media websites and dating websites in search of victims. The con artists engage in emotional labor to befriend or become lovers of their victims. As the relationship develops scammers introduce the idea of making business investments using cryptocurrency platforms and sophisticated AI technologies (manipulated facial profiles, ChatGPT, etc). Students working on this project will recruit and help to interview victims of pig butchering, transcribe interviews, and write fieldnotes.

Deliverables:

a literature review or a data analysis report

Preferred discipline(s):

Social Sciences

Project Essential Skills:

Students interested in questions as they relate to the sociology of money, cryptocurrencies, AI technologies, qualitative research methods, computer science.

Other Selection Criteria (if any):

N/A

Details of supervision arrangements:

Students are required to meet their project supervisors at least three times for progress update. The progress meetings are expected to conduct in person. For projects that are supervised by University of Chicago, the supervisors are either based in Hong Kong campus of University of Chicago or are planning to visit HK during the period of the research projects.