Summary<\/p>\n
A California mother says she lost thousands of dollars to scammers who she believe used AI to clone her daughter’s voice.
\n Experts say AI voice replicas have become so realistic that most people cannot reliably distinguish them from real human voices.
\n People can protect themselves by establishing a secret code word with loved ones and verifying urgent calls through other means.<\/p>\n
\n AI-generated summary was reviewed by a CNN editor.<\/p>\n
New York\u00a0\u2014\u00a0\n <\/p>\n
\n A California mom says she was scammed<\/a> out of thousands of dollars this month after receiving a call that sounded like her daughter in distress. She now suspects it was an artificial intelligence-generated hoax.\n <\/p>\n \n She\u2019s one of many who have been targeted by so-called \u201cvoice cloning\u201d scams as AI tools allow anyone to create a convincing replica of someone\u2019s voice with only a few seconds of real audio.\n <\/p>\n \n Americans lost more than $893 million to AI-related scams last year, including voice cloning attacks along with AI-generated phishing emails, romance scams and other hoaxes, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation<\/a>.\n <\/p>\n \n Scammers can mimic anyone from family members and friends to coworkers or professional services workers. Banks including the United Kingdom\u2019s Starling<\/a> and the Commonwealth Bank of Australia<\/a> have warned customers to watch out for voice cloning scams.\n <\/p>\n<\/p>\n \n Experts say AI voice replicas have gotten so realistic that most people can no longer reliably distinguish them from real human voices.\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cFor the everyday person, it is just not fair to expect them to be able to spot this stuff,\u201d said Henry Ajder, an expert on AI-generated media who consults for governments and companies. \u201cI struggle with it. Most people do.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Scammers can create an AI replica of someone\u2019s voice using a short recording of their speech \u2014 often pulled from social media or an earlier scam call that was surreptitiously recorded. Social media can also provide a trove of information about family members and close friends who could be targeted.\n <\/p>\n \n Fraudsters will typically make it sound like the loved one they\u2019re mimicking is in distress, purportedly having been kidnapped or in jail. Then they\u2019ll urgently demand money in exchange for their loved one\u2019s release.\n <\/p>\n