Albert Saniger has been accused of fraud as it was found that his artificial intelligence (AI) shopping app, Nat, manually trusted the Philippines call center staff to complete the purchase. The Federal Investigation Bureau of Investigation (FBI) stated that Sainigar promoted “smoke and mirror -filled scheme”.
“As, Albert Sainiger misleads investors by exploiting the promises and attractions of AI technology to build a false story about innovation, which never existed,” said Matthew Podolski, said the United States counsel for the southern district of New York.
“This type of deception not only affects innocent investors, it changes capital from legitimate startups, doubt investors about real successes, and eventually disrupts the progress of AI development.”
Saniger established the app in 2018, with investors such as Cutu and Forrner Ventures increased by more than $ 50 million. Recently, he raised $ 38 million in Series A Funding in 2021, headed by Renegade Partners.
He promoted his product as investors and public as a “magic shopping app”, which simplified online shopping as customers could buy items from any e-commerce site, which was with a tap with a tap using the NAT app. Sainigar claimed that the app took care of the rest of the checkout process including billing and shipping information using AI.
However, according to Department of JusticeThe automation rate of the app was “effectively zero percent”. Hundreds of contractors at a Philippines call center, or “purchasing assistant” did legwork and manually completed the purchase on the NAT app.
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Previous example
Saniger is not the only entrepreneur with a startup who has allegedly exaggerated his AI abilities. According to a report in Commercial insiderAI Legal Tech Unicorn used humans for their legal work despite otherwise claiming.
The report exposed, “The former employees stated that they saw several problems with AIS AI, including missed injuries, hallucinations medical conditions and wrongly recorded doctor’s visit.”
Similarly, in 2023, after claiming to be “one of the largest labor automation technology provider in the industry”, the AI-Trained Drive-Through Company Presto Automation was operated by humans in the Philippines.