How Scammers Use A.I.

Consumers know that scammers take advantage of the latest technologies to advance their scams. How exactly is artificial intelligence, or A.I., being used by scammers to hide their identities and gain consumers’ trust?

‘Chatbot’ Text Generation

Scams that involve direct messages or social media posts may use A.I. text generation or ‘chatbots.’ Scammers use chatbots because it allows one scammer to target many people at the same time, and A.I. has made them capable of dynamic conversation. Consumers should remember that whether they are texting, emailing, or speaking with a stranger on social media, there is a chance there isn’t even a human on the other side of the conversation!

Image and Video Generation

Scammers are using A.I. to create very convincing profile pictures or brief videos to enhance a fake social media account – this way, a reverse image search won’t turn up any results. Some scammers use A.I. to create a misleading image or video of a product they are selling online, in order to make it look higher quality or more appealing than it really is. Remember: Even if a photo or video looks real, more verification is required.

Deepfake Videos

A deepfake (specialized technology to replace a person’s face in a video with a different face) can be used by a scammer to trick targets into believing they are seeing someone familiar or trustworthy. Deepfakes have been used to copy a celebrity’s likeness and endorse an online product. They can also be used to copy the face of someone the target knows in real life, like a friend, family member, coworker, or boss. Some deepfakes can even work in real time video calls.

Voice Cloning

When a scammer wants to copy the voice of a specific person, they use a technology called voice cloning. With just a few seconds of audio of a person’s voice, scammers run it through an A.I. program and convert another voice to sound like the cloned voice, or make the cloned voice read written text. Consumers should be aware that audio of a person’s voice can be downloaded off social media or captured during a phone call and then used to trick friends and family members into taking action. Voice cloning can be especially hard to detect over a phone call or when used in combination with a deepfake.