Scammers now using AI to clone voices for fraudulent phone calls

BIRMINGHAM, Ala. (WBRC) - Scammers are now using artificial intelligence and social media to clone voices and use them for scam calls.

Dr. Ragib Hasan is an associate professor of computer science at UAB. He said this new phenomenon is a side effect of AI technology becoming more available.

Scammers will take a person’s voice from videos posted online and put it into a program that will clone the voice. From there they use caller ID screening so whoever is receiving the call believes it’s that person calling, not a spam call.

“As soon as they get even a small sample of voice like a video clip, just a few seconds long, they can then feed that information to the AI voice phoning tools and then be able to impersonate you perfectly,” said Dr. Hasan.

If you receive one of these, hang up and call your loved one back.

“So the best prediction strategy is to call them yourself and check that it was actually them or if it was someone else.”

To prevent your voice from being used for one of these schemes, turn your social media accounts on to private and have conversations with your kids about the importance of privacy on the internet.

“Kids should be very careful about using these social media or this technology. They should be aware that a lot of different types of cybercrime happen and this is just the way of the world. The best way to survive is to just apply common sense and be aware of all these things happening. Don’t lose trust, but verify things before accepting them as true,” said Dr. Hasan.

Dr. Hasan said another way scammers are using AI is through email. They are using programs such as ChatGPT to generate authentic-looking emails, making it harder to decipher if it is a phishing email or not.

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