Two lawmakers are looking to crack down on fraudsters’ increasing use of artificial intelligence in a bipartisan proposal Tuesday that seeks to expand penalties for AI scams and criminalize impersonating federal officials using AI.<\/p>\n
The AI Fraud Deterrence Act, proposed by Reps. Ted Lieu, D-Calif., and Neal Dunn, R-Fla., would update criminal definitions and penalties for fraud to account for the rise of AI.<\/p>\n
\u201cAs AI technology advances at a rapid pace, our laws must keep up,\u201d Dunn said in a statement announcing the bill. <\/p>\n
\u201cThe AI Fraud Deterrence Act strengthens penalties for crimes related to fraud committed with the help of AI. I am proud to co-lead this legislation to protect the identities of the public and prevent misuse of this innovative technology,\u201d Dunn said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe majority of American people want sensible guardrails on AI,” Lieu told NBC News last week. “They don\u2019t think a complete Wild West is helpful.\u201d<\/p>\n
The proposed law would double the maximum penalty for defrauding financial institutions<\/a> from $1 million to $2 million when AI is knowingly used as part of the crime.<\/p>\n The bill would also explicitly include AI-mediated deception in the definitions of both mail fraud <\/a>and wire fraud<\/a>, the latter more commonly known for covering fraud involving \u201cradio or television communication in interstate or foreign commerce,\u201d opening up the explicit possibility of charging individuals who use AI to conduct either type of fraud. <\/p>\n Both would be punishable by $1 million in fines and up to 20 years in prison for mail fraud and 30 years for wire fraud.<\/p>\n The draft also criminalizes the impersonation of federal officials with AI deepfakes, citing AI\u2019s use in attempts to successfully mimic White House chief of staff Susie Wiles<\/a> and Secretary of State Marco Rubio<\/a> earlier this year.<\/p>\n While fraud has existed for millennia<\/a>, experts say AI could exacerbate it by easing access to fraud-making tools and increasing the quality of fraudulent outputs. <\/p>\n People who, pre-AI, would not have expended the energy required to commit fraud can now easily enter a few phrases into an image- or video-generation software to generate a fraudulent image or document.<\/p>\n By using AI, fraudsters can also create higher-quality faked media or documents compared to often sloppy or clearly faked manual efforts<\/a>.<\/p>\n In December, the FBI warned<\/a> that \u201cgenerative AI reduces the time and effort criminals must expend to deceive their targets.\u201d The alert further cautioned that AI \u201ccan correct for human errors that might otherwise serve as warning signs for fraud.\u201d<\/p>\n As reported by The New York Times<\/a>, expense- and reimbursement-management companies like Expensify, AppZen, and SAP\u2019s Concur all implemented tools to screen for fraudulent, AI-generated receipts earlier this year.<\/p>\n AppZen said that roughly 14% of all fraudulent documents<\/a> submitted in September were generated by AI, up from zero AI-fueled incidents a year before.<\/p>\n Maura R. Grossman, a research professor of computer science at the University of Waterloo, in Ontario, and a lawyer, told NBC News that AI enables a new era of deception: \u201cAI presents a scale, a scope, and a speed for fraud that is very, very different from frauds in the past.\u201d<\/p>\n Many observers worry that existing institutions, like the courts, cannot keep up<\/a> with AI\u2019s rapid development. \u201cAI years are dog years,\u201d said Hany Farid, professor of computer science at the University of California, Berkeley, and co-founder of GetReal Security<\/a>, a leading digital-media authentication company, referring to the speed of AI progress<\/a>.<\/p>\n Whereas AI-generated images could previously be identified by the appearance of extra feet or hands<\/a> due to the rudimentary nature of prior image-generation models, today\u2019s image-generation models<\/a> are much more accurate. <\/p>\n The FBI’s warning in December urged individuals to search for discrepancies in images and videos to identify AI-generated media: \u201cLook for subtle imperfections in images and videos, such as distorted hands or feet.\u201d<\/p>\n But to Farid, this 11-month-old advice is wrong and even harmful. \u201cThe multiple hands trick, that\u2019s not true anymore,\u201d Farid said. \u201cYou can\u2019t look for hands or feet. None of that stuff works.\u201d <\/p>\n Emphasizing the importance of labeling AI-generated content, Lieu and Dunn\u2019s proposed bill clarifies that there is a time and place for AI-generated media. <\/p>\n Tuesday\u2019s draft includes a carveout for AI in satire or other acts protected by the First Amendment, \u201cprovided such content includes clear disclosure that it is not authentic.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Two lawmakers are looking to crack down on fraudsters’ increasing use of artificial intelligence in a bipartisan proposal…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":159086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[20],"tags":[220,218,219,61,60,80],"class_list":{"0":"post-159085","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-artificial-intelligence","8":"tag-ai","9":"tag-artificial-intelligence","10":"tag-artificialintelligence","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-technology"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159085","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=159085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/159085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/159086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=159085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=159085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=159085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}