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Concerns grow over artificial intelligence and scams
Kylie Jones reports.
TAMPA, Fla. - Artificial Intelligence is the wave of the future, being used more and more across the board, including by students and businesses.
Tech experts say AI technology can be a creative, innovative tool.
"It is really fun to make videos of your favorite pop singers singing your lyrics," Chris Jenkins, with Druid Ventures, said. "And then, you know, in the business place, being able to point a YouTube video to an AI and have it generate a nice little excerpt or, you know, an explainer that goes along with the video. There's productive stuff like that."
But AI is proving to be extremely dangerous as well. There is a growing concern over AI being used to make scams even more believable and realistic.
"We have no idea yet what levels of virtual reality, blackmail, and extortion might be possible," Jenkins said.
For years, there have been scams in which someone has gotten a call about a loved one being in trouble, and the person has been hounded for thousands or even millions of dollars.
The Federal Trade Commission is warning people about scams using AI technology.
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With AI technology tech experts say scammers are now able to clone someone’s voice and fabricate a phone call that sounds like it’s coming directly from someone’s family, friend, or even child.
"If you've got a sample of somebody's voice, you could theoretically, literally have that child's voice making that call," Jenkins said. "That's a threat that I don't think any of us are well prepared to deal with at this point."
Jenkins urges people to always trust their gut and not to trust everything they see and hear, regardless of how life-like it may be.
"If you get a call from anyone claiming to be someone important, whether it's a family member, your bank or a utility company, anything, and hang up and call them back at the contact number, you know, is good for them," he said.
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He encourages people to establish a method of communication with their family to make sure they can always get in touch with everyone quickly, in the event they run into a situation like this.
"You should have some broadcast mechanism to easily contact all the important people at once, because even if you can't reach that person, maybe their sibling or parent or spouse can answer those questions for you," Jenkins said.
He says Artificial Intelligence is so advanced that someone can even take a video you post on social media and easily clone your face or voice.
"There are models of AI right now that can take a…video of you looking straight at the camera, talking in your normal voice, and generate a 360-degree AI model of you that speaks in your voice and can move around and turn and be seen from the back and everything," Jenkins said.
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Jenkins says technology is continuing to advance, and there is no telling how advanced it could continue to get.
"If you're not a public personality who is engaging globally, then I really recommend that people lock down their social media profiles and make them approved friends and family only," Jenkins said. "Don't give access to your content to the world at large."
Jenkins warns people to be more cautious than ever about what they share and with whom they share it.
Anyone who spots or experiences a scam is asked to report it to the Federal Trade Commission here.