Fake voice: AI scam leads to 95 million euros loss

An Italian bank chief was cheated by a fake vote and lost 95 million euros. The fraud was mimicked by an AI-generated voice pretending to the boss to be a confidant and in need of an urgent referral. The deception succeeded because the voice sounded so realistic that the boss carried out the request without further examination. This event highlights the increasing risk of AI-powered scams targeting modern communication channels. The use of AI to counterfeit voices is known as voice closing and is an example of how AI technologies can be used in both positive and negative ways. While AI tools like ChatGPT can help in practice to assist with tax matters and handle appeals against the tax office, such incidents also show the need to combine AI technologies with security measures. Transhumanists use AI and genetic engineering to improve the human species, but the application of such technologies in crime shows that the development of AI raises not only ethical but also security issues. An AI’s ability to think like a human is often associated with the concept of superintelligence. However, it remains questionable whether AI is able to fully replicate complex human decision-making processes. In practice, such incidents show that the integration of AI into communications and security solutions is crucial to detect and block fraud attempts. The combination of AI technologies and human oversight could be an effective strategy to exploit both the benefits and risks of AI.