– Scammers are using artificial intelligence to mimic voices, including those of friends and family, in phone scams to make them more believable.
– Americans lost nearly $9 billion to fraud last year, with an increase of over 150% in just two years, according to the Federal Trade Commission.
– The AI scam has caused emotional devastation, with scammers using cloned voices to deceive victims, as illustrated by a mother's encounter with scammers claiming they had her daughter.
– Younger people experience fraud and financial loss more often than older people, but the older generation often have more at stake.
– Common software can recreate a person's voice after only 10 minutes of learning it.
– To protect against voice cloning scams, experts recommend adopting a "code word" system and always calling a person back to verify the authenticity of the call.
– Setting social media accounts to private can help prevent publicly available information from being easily used against individuals in these scams.