AI cold outreach flood: professor gets 75 PhD inquiries months before 2027 cycle
random_walker · x · 2026-09-13
Professor Arvind Narayanan laments that AI agents are killing cold outreach: months before the Fall 2027 PhD admissions cycle, he has already received 75 inquiries, expected to grow exponentially until December—one of 10-15 categories of unsolicited email he gets. He also flags a new wave of spam/extortion from a company called iLands running unmonitored agents. Responding to critics, he notes that as a student growing up in India without connections, cold emails were his way to reach prominent researchers; AI-generated personalized spam erases the distinction between mass mail and genuine outreach, hurting those without networks.
Related event: AI-Generated Cold Emails Flood Professors' Inboxes, Killing the Signal(4 posts)→
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