As if cheating on exams wasn't bad enough, AI tools are now being used for something even worse: scamming innocent pensioners.
A Canadian couple in their 70s reportedly took a phone call from someone that sounded like their grandson who said he was in jail and needed money for bail.
According to the Washington Post, the unfortunate pair withdrew $3000 Canadian dollars (approx £1800) from one bank account and were about to take out the same amount again.
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Fortunately, the bank manager was able to intervene and let them know they were being scammed after another customer received a similar call.
Another couple weren't so lucky. TechSpot reports that the parents of one Benjamin Perkin were called by a 'lawyer' who claimed their son had killed a US diplomat in a road accident.
The 'lawyer' said that Benjamin had been jailed and needed to pay for his legal fees. He even put 'Benjamin' on the phone who told his parents he loved them.
Benjamin said the voice clone they used was "close enough for my parents to truly believe they did speak with me".
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Benjamin's parents then handed over $15,449 to the scammer in Bitcoin. They were never able to recover it.
AI tools have made it easier than ever to create spoofs of people's voices. All a criminal needs is a short video or audio clip of someone speaking to create a convincing duplicate of their voice.
This can be taken from someone's personal social media account and can be as short as three seconds long.
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