Toronto
A company that specializes in detecting spam phone calls says it expects generative artificial intelligence to drastically change the way call recipients are targeted, including the potential for scammers to tailor their attacks to specific people.
Jonathan Nelson, director of product management for Seattle-based Hiya, says Canadian telecommunications companies and their customers should be wary of a likely influx in calls that use AI to fool the caller within the coming years.
This could include speech augmentation to remove a scammer's accent, automation to replace the role of a human scammer with that of a robot and technology that can frequently alter spam call scripts, making them less recognizable to the recipient.
He also warns of voice cloning technology being paired with automation to mimic a human, making them sound identical to a specific person that the call recipient knows.
Nelson spoke to Canadian telecommunications industry stakeholders Wednesday on the final day of the Canadian Telecom Summit in Toronto.
The Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre says there have been more than 32,000 reports of fraud to the national police service as of June 30 this year, along with $283.5 million lost to fraud in that time.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2023
Banner image via The Canadian Press - People take photos of an AI robot at the All In artificial intelligence conference, Wednesday, September 27, 2023, in Montreal.
