A mother said that creeps used AI to clone her 15-year-old daughter's voice in order to fake the girl's abduction and try to demand ransom from the mother.
Kidnapping Scam
According to Futurism, the mother, Jennifer DeStefano, received a call from an unknown number. Upon doing so, she heard the voice of her daughter saying "Mom" while sobbing. Ms. Jennifer then asked what happened, and the daughter replied by saying that she messed up, all while crying and sobbing.
Ms. Jennifer adds that she heard an unknown man's voice telling her "daughter" to place her head back and lie down. Her confusion then became terror.
As per WKYT, the mysterious man also told Ms. Jennifer that he would drug her daughter if the mother called the police. The man also added that he was going to "have his way with her" and that he would be leaving her behind in Mexico.
By that time, Ms. Jennifer was shaking. She said that she could hear her "daughter" in the background bawling and asking for help repeatedly.
Afterward, the unknown man asked for a ransom worth $1 million. When Ms. Jennifer said that she did not have enough money, the demand was lowered to $50,000.
Ms. Jennifer kept the man talking. While the call was taking place, she was in the dance studio of her other daughter. There were moms around her who wanted to help her. One of them called 911 while another one contacted Ms. Jennifer's husband.
In just four minutes, they were able to confirm that Ms. Jennifer's daughter was safe.
Ms. Jennifer shared that her daughter was inside her room, asking what was happening. This made Ms. Jennifer angry, as the prank they pulled off was not something that they should have played around with.
After confirming the safety of her daughter, Ms. Jennifer hung up. She had no doubts, however, that she heard her daughter's voice during the call. She adds that the voice and inflection were completely her daughter's. The way the girl cried was also the same as her daughter's. This was what pulled on the mother's nerves.
AI Voice Clone
However, the 15-year-old daughter never said any of these things. The voice heard by Ms. Jennifer was cloned by artificial intelligence. People reports that Sinéad Bovell, the founder of Waye, noted that obtaining the voice of someone is much easier than it seems. The website of Waye focuses on educating youth about technology.
According to Bovell, most people these days have an online identity of some sort. They may have also spoken in some way. This, then, becomes recorded. Considering this, it will become extremely challenging as the world enters a future where synthetic or AI audio generators are present. These pose challenges to validation and verification.
WYKT also adds that Subbarao Kambhampati, a professor of computer science at the Arizona State University who specializes in AI, said that the technology of voice cloning is improving rapidly. Professor Kambhampati adds that one cannot "trust your ears" anymore.
Dan Mayo, an FBI agent, expresses the need to keep these things locked down. He adds that one thing that can be done is to ask the caller things they would not know about the victim. This could help call recipients identify if the person behind the call is a scammer or not.
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