Context: Voice clone fraud has been on the rise in India as voice cloning through artificial intelligence is increasingly being used for scams.
AI Voice Scams: Alarming Statistics from India
- The Artificial Imposter Report, 2022: It revealed that 47% of surveyed Indians have either been a victim or knew someone who had fallen prey to an AI-generated voice scam.
For instance, recently a Lucknow resident fell prey to a cyberattack that used AI to impersonate the voice of the victim’s relative, requesting the person to transfer a substantial amount through UPI.
- AI Voice Scams: According to McAfee, 66% of Indian participants admitted that they would respond to a voice call or a phone call that appeared to be from a friend or family member in urgent need of money.
Must Read: NCRB Data On Cyber Crime In India
About Voice Cloning
- Voice Cloning: It is the process of creating a synthetic voice using the audio recordings of a real person.
Some Examples of Voice Cloning Scams
- A woman in Arizona received a phone call from someone who sounded like her daughter, crying and begging for help. The caller claimed to have been kidnapped and asked for $5,000 in ransom.
- A CEO of a UK-based energy firm was tricked into transferring $243,000 to a Hungarian supplier after receiving a phone call from someone who sounded like his boss, the CEO of the parent company in Germany.
- A Canadian man received a voicemail from someone who sounded like his mother, asking him to call her back urgently. When he called back, he was told that his mother had been in a car accident and needed money for surgery.
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- AI Voice Cloning: Voice cloning using Artificial Intelligence (AI) techniques to train a Machine Learning voice model on real recordings can extract spectrums of the voice and create a voice that sounds almost exactly like the real voice.
- For instance, voice cloning using advanced deep learning techniques can create expressive, emotional, and emotional voice clones that resemble 99% of the real voice.
- Misuse of Voice Clones: Scammers use an audio clip of an individual and upload their voice clip to an online program that is able to replicate the voice almost accurately.
- Voice Cloning Services: There’s a host of these applications online with popular ones like Murf, Resemble, Speechify, etc.
Voice Cloning Working Mechanism
- Data Collection and Preprocessing: To clone voices effectively, an extensive dataset of voice samples is required.
- Once collected, these audio samples undergo preprocessing, where the sounds are cleaned, organized, and formatted to be fed into the AI models.
- Role of Neural Networks: These advanced AI frameworks scrutinize the raw audio data extract patterns and decipher the complex web of sound.
- Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs): A dynamic framework propels the technology’s capability to clone voices. It comprises two components viz. the generator and the discriminator.
- The generator’s role is to create synthetic voices.
- The discriminator undertakes the task of differentiating between generated and authentic human voices.
- Creating Authentic Voices: The process of AI voice cloning culminates in the creation of authentic voices.
News Source: TH
January 8, 2024