Steve Wozniak, the co-founder of Apple, is predicting that artificial intelligence would transform the nature of scams and make them more convincing and is expecting stricter laws to control the use of such technologies.
Criminals are currently using AI to scam people using cloned voices that tend to be convincing enough to fool many people. Wozniak wants AI content to be clearly labeled and regulated.
According to Wozniak, the responsibility for content generated via AI and posted in public space must fall on those who publish such content.
“A human really has to take the responsibility for what is generated by AI.” Wozniak suggests implementing strict regulation to hold accountable the big tech firms that think “they can kind of get away with anything.”
However, Wozniak expressed skepticism about the possibility of regulators getting things right when it comes to AI. “I think the forces that drive for money usually win out, which is sort of sad.”
AI Scams
On May 2, McAfee Group, a global leader in online protection, published a report (pdf) about AI technology fueling a rise in online voice scams. Just three seconds of audio was found to be enough to clone an individual’s voice, the report stated.Of the over 7,000 people from seven countries surveyed by the company, a quarter of the adults were found to have experienced some kind of AI voice scam, with 10 percent experiencing it personally while 15 percent seeing it happen to someone they knew. Seventy-seven percent of victims of such scams ended up losing money.
A man’s voice on the phone suggested that he had kidnapped the kid. DeStephano quickly confirmed that her daughter was safe. Her daughter was actually in the house. The criminal had cloned her daughter’s voice in an attempt to scam her.
In April, the agency issued desist and refrain orders on Maxpread Technologies for offering unqualified securities. The firm claimed to use AI to trade crypto assets, promising daily returns of a minimum of 0.6 percent. The company also tricked investors about the identity of its CEO by using a fake, AI-generated avatar that was programmed to read a script.
Controlling AI
The growing abilities of AI technology have triggered worries among experts. Wozniak was one of the more than 27,500 signatories of a recent open letter by the Future of Life Institute, which urged for temporarily pausing AI experiments.“Such decisions must not be delegated to unelected tech leaders. Powerful AI systems should be developed only once we are confident that their effects will be positive and their risks will be manageable.”
“Just as food and cars are not released into the market without proper assurance of safety, so too AI systems should provide assurance to the public, government, and businesses that they are fit for purpose,” the agency said in an April 11 statement.