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> we are not yet at the point where a voice can be mimicked accurately from a voicemail or a clip on social media

See: https://www.thestar.com/business/technology/2023/01/10/micro...

> Microsoft’s new AI can mimic any voice after just 3 seconds

Play the result over a low-bandwidth PTSN line and it could probably fool people in tech, let alone your grandma. Welcome to the future.

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phphphphp|3 years ago

That’s a paper with very carefully selected examples. The point I’m making is not that this will never be possible (it will) but rather it is not happening right now and this article is just victims and journalists doing exactly what all scam victims do: look for a reason they fell for the scam that softens the blow. AI in the news? Must be AI!

Scams don’t need sophisticated technology to work, suggesting that scammers have access to some state-of-the-art technology that has only been demonstrated in a paper doesn’t match up with the reality of what scamming is.

Getting scammed is embarrassing and our natural response is to look for reasons beyond the obvious. These scammers don’t need state of the art voice technology, because this exact scam has been working for the best part of a decade across many different mediums. There’s a reason if you walk into a shop and try to buy $1000 in gift cards, or walk into a bank and try to withdraw $3000 in cash, that the teller will assume you’re the victim of a scam!

Protecting ourselves and our families from being scammed requires a sensible, realistic understanding of how they work: getting caught up in some AI fantasy misses the forest for the trees.

Go back to the month before ChatGPT was unveiled and you’ll find this exact same news article written weekly for the last 5 years, except it won’t mention AI, because it wasn’t hot then.

https://consumer.ftc.gov/articles/scammers-use-fake-emergenc...

https://www.aarp.org/money/scams-fraud/info-07-2010/scam_ale...

https://theguardian.com/money/2013/nov/13/stranded-traveller...

https://travel.state.gov/content/travel/en/international-tra...