CBC’s Marketplace investigates how scammers are pulling off ever more sophisticated cons with artificial intelligence tools that allow them to convincingly mimic anyone — even close friends and family.

Las Vegas

The release of Open AI's ChatGPT has accelerated the development of artificial intelligence and warnings about its impact on society.

Rise of AI

Detecting scams has become more challenging as scammers begin utilizing artificial intelligence (AI) to clone voices, creating more convincing con operations. At the 35th annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference in Las Vegas, experts raised awareness about this emerging threat, explaining how overseas fraudsters are exploiting social media content to mimic the voices of friends and family members. In a demonstration, former CIA officer Peter Warmcutt showcased how easy it is to clone a voice from social media, completing the task in under a minute.

Cases like that of Marilyn Crawford illustrate the real-life implications of AI-driven scams. Crawford received a call supposedly from local police claiming her grandson was in custody and required a $9,000 payment for his release. Known as the "grandparent scam," such tricks prey on the emotional and financial vulnerabilities of the elderly. The scam was averted when a bank teller intervened before any money was lost.

While scammers employ AI for malicious purposes, technology is also being leveraged to tackle fraud. British telecommunications company O2 has developed an AI named Daisy to counteract phone scams. This AI convincingly engages scammers, kept them occupied, and thus unable to carry out fraudulent activities on others. This highlights the growing sophistication of both scam techniques and mechanisms to counter them.



Scammers using AI to clone voices to pull off cons

Detecting scams is about to get a whole lot harder as scammers embrace artificial intelligence. Oh it's a playground. At the world's largest fraud training and prevention conference the alarm bells are sounding. Overseas scammers are harvesting our posts and videos from social media to use against our family and friends. Former CIA officer Peter Warmcutt did it in under a minute using me as an example. Hi this is David Common reporting from Las Vegas, Nevada at the 35th annual ACFE Global Fraud Conference. That's nuts. I spoke none of those words but AI can clone my voice precisely from social media. It may have happened to Marilyn Crawford. An early morning phone call from a man identifying himself as the local police. Her son Kevin recounts what the caller said next. We have your grandson in custody. He has been involved with a car theft and we need $9,000 to release him. It's called the grandparent scam. They said here we have Ian here and he goes hi grandma. Please say they need some money to release me or they're gonna keep me in jail. In that moment did you believe it was your grandson in trouble? I did. I really did. The scammers even sent her a taxi to take her to the bank. But an alert teller there stopped Marilyn from losing any money. Just as scammers use AI for voice cloning. Hello scammers. I'm your worst nightmare. A British telecom is using AI to fight back. I'm an AI created by O2 to waste phone scammers time. Daisy is not real but she convincingly keeps scammers on the line. Because while they're busy talking to me they can't be scamming you. All of it underscoring how much more sophisticated scams and scam busting have now become. David Common, CBC News, Toronto.

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Rise of AI