INDIANAPOLIS — You get a call. There's a panicked voice on the line telling you they’re in trouble and it sounds exactly like a loved one.
Experts warn it may be a scam made possible through artificial intelligence (AI).
“They can not only spoof the number to make it look like it’s coming from the person they think it’s coming from, but this new AI technology makes it sound just the person," retired Special Agent Doug Kouns said.
Kouns was with the FBI for 22 years and says phone scams are getting harder and harder to distinguish.
“If they’re asking you for something that’s out of the ordinary or seems wrong, say 'let me call you right back.' Hang up, dial the number and say 'did you just call me?' Good chance they weren’t," Kouns said.
Professor Snehasis Mukhopadhyay at IUPUI has over 30 years of experience studying artificial intelligence.
“Recent developments in neural networks increased accuracy quite a bit," Mukhopadhyay said.
A neural network is a method in artificial intelligence that teaches computers to process data in a way that is inspired by the human brain.
Since the 1980s, the technology has advanced to a place where it’s hard to tell what’s real and what’s fake.
“If you collect the samples for an individual, of different things, different types of spoken words, voice expressions and so on, then you can reproduce it with enough accuracy to pass as the original person," Mukhopadhyay said.
That’s exactly what happened to Jennifer DeStefano, of Arizona, who fell victim to one of these scams back in January.
“That terror. That absolute terror. I was willing to get in a van with a bag over my head, with some strange guy and be hauled off," DeStefano said.
Her 15-year-old daughter was out of town on a ski trip when DeStefano received a call from an unknown number that sounded just like her.
“She goes ‘mom these bad men have me. Help me, help me, help me.' At that point, I’m panicking and this man gets on the phone and says ‘listen here, I have your daughter," DeStefano said.
The phone call was so terrifying that three months later she’s still working through trauma from it.
Today, she’s using her voice and story to educate others.
“After I put this on Nextdoor, all of these people started coming forward with different stories. I wish I would’ve know about this ahead of time because it would’ve been much easier to digest," DeStefano said.
So how can you protect you and your family from falling victim to an AI scam?
“Come up with something only they would know. Or just have a family meeting about it. Come up with some sort of code word that you’ve arranged in advanced to know if this is happening," Kouns said.
