[James]

Apparently AI voice scams are becoming a thing.

.....What are AI voice scams?
First emerging overseas last year, many AI voice scams appear to be an evolution of the text message-based "Hi Mum" scam which gained notoriety in Australia in 2022.

This scam saw criminals contact victims by text, pretending to be a family member (often a child) in urgent need of money after losing their phone.

But the power of AI has now enabled scammers to take their impersonations to the next level, as Toby Murray, associate professor in the school of computing and information systems at the University of Melbourne, explains.

"AI voice-cloning technology allows you to mimic someone's voice pretty closely and [it's] getting good enough now that the results are becoming almost indistinguishable," he says.

concerned_senior_on_phone
Scammers can use voice clones of a loved one in trouble to convince victims to hand over money.

Read more: The new PayPal scam to watch out for

"You can create a convincing, false recording of someone's voice that could then fool a family member into thinking that it's their loved one," Murray explains.

These recordings are then deployed against victims through phone calls or voice messages on social media apps.

But it's not just a family member or friend's voice you might hear on the other end of the line – investment scammers are also deploying this method, enlisting the voices of famous individuals to spruik get-rich-quick schemes and convince victims to hand over their savings......

From https://www.choice.com.au/consumers-...ai-voice-scams