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Suspended Over AI Cheating Tool, Student Now Lands $5.3M in Funding
- Written by Kiara Fabbri Former Tech News Writer
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
A Columbia University student who was suspended for creating a controversial AI tool to help users cheat on job interviews has just raised $5.3 million in seed funding, as first reported by Fortune .
In a rush? Here are the quick facts:
- Columbia student suspended for building AI that helps cheat in interviews.
- Cluely AI gives real-time answers during interviews via invisible browser overlay.
- Tool now used for exams, sales calls; not officially for dating.
Chungin “Roy” Lee, along with cofounder Neel Shanmugam, launched the tool—now called Cluely—to assist job seekers during technical interviews.
The AI tool gives users live answers through an invisible browser overlay that reads the screen and listens to conversations in real time. It can now also be used for tasks like exams and sales calls.
Lee was suspended by Columbia in March, but despite the controversy, investors are backing their vision.
“[To be honest], I don’t think this is cheating,” Lee wrote on LinkedIn. “Every single time technology has made people smarter, the world panics. Then it adapts. Then it forgets. And suddenly, it’s normal […] AI will transform the entire world […] Cluely is the bridge to a world where humans don’t compete with machines—we grow with them.”
Fortune reports that Cluely is currently available by subscription—$20 a month or $100 per year for unlimited use. The founders describe it as a modern tool for a new era, likening it to calculators or spellcheck.
However, a demonstration video showing the tool assisting someone on a date sparked backlash and drew comparisons to Black Mirror. Lee later clarified, as reported by Fortune, that dating is not a real use case for the product.
In a bold statement on their website, the Cluely team said, “So, start cheating. Because when everyone does, no one is,” as reported by Fortune. As AI continues to reshape education and the job market, Cluely’s rise is fueling debate on what counts as cheating in a tech-driven world.
Photo by David Trinks on Unsplash
FBI Report Reveals Scammers Stole Over $16 billion in 2024
- Written by Andrea Miliani Former Tech News Expert
- Fact-Checked by Sarah Frazier Former Content Manager
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) of the United States published its latest Internet Crime Report this Wednesday. The document, which includes data from 2024, revealed that scammers stole around $16.6 billion that year and noted that online crimes increased by 33% compared to 2023.
In a rush? Here are the quick facts:
- The FBI published its latest Internet Crime Report this Wednesday.
- IC3 revealed Americans lost over $16.6 billion to malicious actors in 2024
- Online crimes increased 33% compared to 2023, and people over 60 have been the most affected.
According to the report , the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) receives, on average, over 2,000 complaints every day from different age groups and locations—including international complaints. The agency warned about increasing cases of scams, reported losses, cryptocurrency fraud, and crimes targeting older adults
“As nearly all aspects of our lives have become digitally connected, the attack surface for cyber actors has grown exponentially,” wrote B. Chad Yarbrough, Operations Director for Criminal and Cyber at the FBI. “Last year saw a new record for losses reported to IC3, totaling a staggering $16.6 billion. Fraud represented the bulk of reported losses in 2024, and ransomware was again the most pervasive threat to critical infrastructure, with complaints rising 9% from 2023.”
The agent also noted that people over 60 years old were the most affected by scams. Older adults lost around $4.8 billion in 2024. Other age groups, like the ones between 40 and 49, and 50 and 59 lost over $2.2 billion. Younger generations shared more complaints with the FBI but also lost money.
“These rising losses are even more concerning because last year, the FBI took significant actions to make it harder, and more costly, for malicious actors to succeed,” wrote Yarbrough. “We dealt a serious blow to LockBit, one of the world’s most active ransomware groups.”
The most reported threats received by the IC3 were data breaches and ransomware, reaching over 4,800. The most reported variants of ransomware were Akira, Lockbit, RansomHub, FOG, and PLAY.
Last year, in June, the FBI retrieved more than 7,000 decryption keys from the LockBit ransomware group, and succeeded at other missions. A few days ago, the agency announced they arrested dark web launderer ElonmuskWHM during a long money-laundering operation.
