Fake extortion calls could become more and more real with the artificial intelligence (AI).
Jennifer DeEstefano, a mother in Arizona, United Stateswas almost forced to pay an extortion fee of US$50,000 to save the life of her daughter, who was apparently kidnapped.
A voice just like her daughter’s with AI.
“Mom, I messed up!” the mother heard through the phone in a voice identical to her daughter’s.
Then a man says “Throw your head back, lie down” and speaks to the mother, “Listen to me. I have your daughter. Here’s what’s going to happen. You call the police, whoever, I’m going to hurt her, and I’m going to leave her in Mexico.”
In the background she hears the tearful voice of what is apparently her daughter: “Help me, Mom. Please help me.
Jennifer DeEstefano didn’t doubt for a second that it was her daughter in distress. “It was never a question of who she is. It was completely her voice. It was her inflection. It was the way she would have cried,” she told AZ Family.
After being asked for $1 million, the mother negotiated $50,000 for the ransom.
But after calling her husband, DeEstefano was able to learn that her daughter was with him, safe and sound.
The supposed daughter was a voice generated by iartificial intelligence (AI).
“You can’t rely on your ears anymore,” noted Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor of computer science at Arizona State University.
“In the beginning, a large number of samples were required. Now there are ways you can achieve this (mimic a voice with great accuracy). Now there are ways you can achieve this with as little as three seconds of your voice. Three seconds,” he warned.
The expert also warned that most voice clones can capture inflection as well as emotion.
