Mother recounts falling victim to AI kidnapping scam

Arizona mother Jennifer DeStefano, who was recently the victim of a deepfake kidnapping extortion plot, speaks to CNN's Erica Hill about scammers that used her daughter's voice and demanded $1 million in ransom. DeStefano testified before Congress to sound the alarm on the dangers of artificial intelligence and urged lawmakers to regulate the technology. #CNN #News

[codyandjessisalazar]

This is happening all over… my grandma had a call from my voice telling her I needed help and was stranded 2000 miles away and needed money….. and a friend went through something similar as well. This is sick and scary AF!!

[danleonhart]

Create a secret word or phrase that only your immediate family knows the answer. If the phony kidnapper can't provide the answer.. Then the gig is up! (Would even work if some stranger attempts to pick up your child)

[radwulfeboraci]

Somebody sells the scammers a phone #. There needs to be a way to track these numbers. Once upon a time, you had to go to a phone retailer in person with an ID to open a phone account. They did this to ensure they did not get hung for thousands of $$ in unpaid phone charges. What happened?

[MadDragon]

*No crime was committed?* Last I checked extortion and threatening great bodily harm are crimes.
It's also unlikely the acquiring of all the information was legal.

[MrMaWis-xhzr]

People are getting STUPIDER.
Technology is gone way too far.

[MG-iyoh]

There is a crime! Attempted extortion!

[ericeandco]

The government has to ramp up finding and capturing the perpetrators and severely increasing the consequences.

[tjhill]

What??? That's horrifying! Really AI is posing extreme danger.

[tonysolar]

Use a code word to verify. Simple. This will keep happening, you cannot stop it via laws, etc. Get used to it and adapt.

[marymoriarity]

I cannot imagine how terrified this mother must’ve been what is scammers played with sounded like her daughter crying out for help. These are the kind of things that happen when there is an artificial intelligence involved, but they say there’s nothing they can do because there was no. Crime. There is no doubt that foreign tear groups will get involved with the possibilities of anything that AI can produce.

[TropicalLatitude]

When Ai is outlawed, only outlaws will have AI. The only thing that can protect you from a bad guy with Ai is a good guy with Ai. We need an Ai Amendment and bumper stickers.

[-danR]

'I don't know how they got my voice.'

I don't know how many times they got my voice when...
"This call may be monitored or recorded for quality-assurance purposes..."

I have no legal assurance that the quality-assurance subcontractors who wind up with assessing those recordings will not turn around and peddle the recordings (along with name-tagged metadata) to someone else. They will likely pass it on until the orange is completely squeezed dry of every last profitable cent of juice.

[drunkingham]

My safe word is 'hotdog water'.

[ianreed]

Life was just fine before AI and will continue to be without it. They need to get rid of it altogether.

[benwindbag]

Truism: Criminals will exploit any new technology.

[susanyantha]

What people will do they can’t have any heart scammers are horrible ..I feel for this women and her family thank you for letting us know to be wear

[tonysolar]

Did she ever answer a phone call, join a voice chat, etc? Anything can be recorded.

[emanuelmurillo]

This happened to my brother today. The scammers had my voice say help they have me hostage and pressured my brother to send 700 dollars in cash. All while I was at home and was unaware that I was supousedly kidnapped. Don't put videos with loved one's voices can be heard, or post much about yourself online.

[tonysolar]

Voice cloning can be done on your own home system with downloaded AI software. Good luck on stopping it. In the future I may clone my parents in a version of AI to ease the pain of the loss.

[VelvetProductions]

All hell break loose is what’s gonna happened. Even a blind man can see.