Dumb Criminals, AI, And You (A Cautionary Tale)

This is one of my favorite dumb criminal stories.

In 1995, McArthur Wheeler and Clifton Earl Johnson robbed two banks in Pittsburgh without wearing masks.

Cops used footage from the banks’ security cameras to track down the robbers and arrest them.

When cops showed Wheeler the photos they used to identify him, he said, “But I wore the lemon juice. I wore the lemon juice.”

Turns out Johnson convinced Wheeler they would be invisible to security cameras if they smeared their faces with lemon juice.

You see, lemon juice can be used as a primitive invisible ink. So it follows that lemon juice can be used as make-you-invisible makeup, right?

Ummm. Wrong!

Right tactic (lemon juice = invisibility), wrong application (on the face, not on paper).

Right-tactic-wrong-application will send you to the penitentiary if you’re a bank robber.

Right-tactic-wrong-application will send you to the poor house if you’re a business owner.

I see it all the time. Business people copying tactics that worked in one application but fail miserably in another.

AI has made it worse. Google “AI prompts,” and you’ll see a tsunami of links:

“200+ Best AI Prompts Any Business Can Use”

“Best AI prompts”

“AI prompt library for small businesses”

The problem: These prompts are as effective as lemon juice makeup if you simply cut/paste them into your favorite AI engine.

At best, you’ll end up with the same-old common output that everyone else is generating. At worst, you’ll get a one-way ticket to the poor house.

To make AI work — so you can generate more and better profit-generating content with less time and effort — you have to train it.

You have to teach it the frameworks you use to create great content. You have to control the information it accesses to generate answers. You have to give it context.

On Monday, I’m hosting a small-group session where I’ll reveal how I do this — so I can consistently create emails, social posts, video scripts, and other business-building content with AI’s help.

I’ll reveal the simple method I use to dumb-proof my AI robots. And I’ll unveil powerful, time-saving AI tools you can use to generate a flood of ideas and draft great content.

Interested?

If yes, reply to this email with “Lemon Juice” and I’ll send you a free pass to attend.