OpenAI’s Sam Altman warns of AI voice fraud crisis in banking
OpenAI’s Sam Altman warns of AI voice fraud crisis in banking

OpenAI's Sam Altman warns of AI voice fraud crisis in banking

OpenAI’s Sam Altman warns of AI voice fraud crisis in banking
OpenAI's Sam Altman warns of AI voice fraud crisis in banking
Voiceprinting as an identification for wealthy bank clients grew popular more than a decade ago, with customers typically asked to utter a challenge phrase into the phone to access their accounts.
ha, I thought it was just a movie trope
sometimes it feels like banks will use literally anything but recommended practices for multi-factor authentication
ha, I thought it was just a movie trope
I wish. My bank has been trying to get me to do that shit for years when I call in.
"YoUr VoIcE iS yOuR pAsSwOrD" - no, my fucking password is my password, and this voice print shit was an obvious security hole from day 1, which is why I always answered that I didn't consent to their bullshit.
There's no way that the phone network has enough fidelity to be able to accurately transmit your voice anyway. People who sound similar to you will be able to get in.
I argued with my old bank for ages about this and they continued to insist enabling it on my account was a great idea.
The film Sneakers showed the world why voice ID was a massive security hole and an all-around crappy idea back in 1992, and some idiots are still insisting it's a good idea in 2025 when it's only become astronomically easier to beat than Robert Redford and friends demonstrated.
In my case, I've been doing radio, podcasting, and other voice work for a long time and as a result there are hundreds and hundreds of hours of my voice freely available out there. People can cut and paste me saying "my voice is my passport, verify me" or anything else they like together in Audacity, no AI needed, and fool any telephone-based audio security computer on the planet with it. And explaining this in-person to the branch manager of my former bank elicited nothing more than the blankest expression I'd seen since the pet goldfish I had as a kid.
Nope.
Fuck TD. They enabled this horseshit automatically on my account. Surprise, surprise, it didnt work on my voice, even once.
Supposedly they disabled it three times. Guess what else happened? Someone accessed my damn account, because it was their voice linked to my account.
I'll never have a TD account again. Absolute jackasses in terms of account security, that isn't even the only issue I had with them.
When I was complaining about the 10 pieces of paper, each needing a signature and a stamp, just to close one of my bank accounts, the clerk has informed me that some of their procedures has switched to an electronic signature instead. I was pumped! Until he finished the rest of the sentence. By the electronic signature he meant the squigly line, just on a touchscreen.
Some people strive to achieve the pure zen. At that moment I've achieved pure cringe instead.
It's strange though, because that same bank has an excellent API and batch processing available.
My bank uses that and personal info, and I have to be calling from a registered number.
Even ISPs do this where I am. You don't have to utter anything specifically but if they detect your voice being drastically different from what they have on file, they'll lock you out before you even talk to a real person. Not sure how I feel about it tbh
I am guessing they were trying to explain how a large number of banks are using the company PinDrop Security and did a really bad job of it.
"Hey guys, watch out for this torment nexus. It could be pretty scary!"
So are you going to stop building it then?
"...No."
"Did I mention how powerful my products are? Pleeeaaase don't give me money!"
Oh he seriously needs to shut up.
He spends his entire time now telling everybody how a product, he is insisting on building, is going to kill us all.
You would have thought that if you were building a doomsday bomb but didn't want to die it'd be pretty easy to just stop building said bomb. But nope everyday he continues making it more and more destructive.
I mean it's a valid concern. He's also nowhere near the first to voice it. I attended a presentation from a Microsoft exec who explained that Microsoft had already developed very powerful voice mimicking technology, well ahead of anything public at the time. It required only a few seconds of speech before it could fully replicate your voice. But their ethics board or whatever stopped them, due to the massive fraud risks. Nowadays I think they've adapted the tech to voice recognition used in Teams instead.
Of course, MS wasn't the only one working on this and other people have since published these solutions, so the cat's out of the bag now.
the problem is "he" isn't the only one building AI. If it wasn't openAI it would have been someone else. And soon almost anyone with small business level of resources will be able to have an AI platform at their disposal.
I'm not saying the guy is a paragon of virtue or anything, but a voice from within the industry should be valuable to get legislators on board to do something about it. Not that I have great faith in them either.
Open AI started it though. They published the original research paper that made all of this possible.
This moron is trying to drum up financial panic so he can hawk his stupid human verification device. The Sphere I think ? Or the Orb ? Whatever. It's a fucking camera.
Yeah he's invented the webcam, I suppose we merely have to be thankful that it isn't another train.
How about some Yubikeys or smart cards instead of something that requires me to scan my retina and share it with Sam Altman
You'd have to be real ignorant of technology to accept any form of voice or face recognition to gain access to anything - even your phone.
Use a code or a pattern, everyone. This is to protect you from bad cops as much as it is to protect you from bad criminals.
I'm actually really annoyed I can't do two factor on my phone (e.g. Fingerprint + password).
I had to call into my bank recently and had to listen through what was effectively an ad to sign up for their voice authentication service. All the while I'm thinking, "How dare you implement this crap when you don't even support TOTP or security keys."
Fortunately mine does both. I use Fidelity as my "bank" mostly because they offer Symantec VIP, which is at least a form of TOTP.
I'm actually really annoyed I can't do two factor
2 Factor 2 Furious
Month later
Oh by the way, just conveniently, we have this new product which can take care of this problem for you.
Oh no, this tool that EVERY FUCKING ONE said would be very helpful for fraudsters and scammers is going to cause a crisis! WHO COULDA PREDITED IT???????????
Does anyone actually think he's a genius? He's clearly a moron of the highest degree.
Failing upwards.
I followed a different post and replaced AI with cocaine, and it still works in this context.
Yes it's rather like Pablo Escobar going "don't do drugs kids".
Well well well… if it isn’t the consequences of my own actions…
I am rich so write what I said.
I am the system administrator. My voice is my password passport. Verify me.
*passport
Been way too long since I played that game. Amusingly, it's not easy to get running on Linux (last time I checked, at least)
I find it really fascinating, how these people think everything is a complete non-issue, unless money is involved. The society can fuck itself, but if their bank account is at risk, then it's scorched earth time
Does anyone by chance have tips for someone wanting to sound like Mark Hamil Joker via AI? No particular reason...
I mean, download xtts2 and feed a six-second clip of Mark Hamill's voice into it. Altman isn't wrong that it's extremely easy these days and a massive security hole.
What Mark Hamill Joker fan doesn't have their own Mark Hamill Joker impression? Screw AI, just do the voice like we've all been doing for 30+ years.
I'm not that gifted... in a lot of ways. lol
Yeah, Sam, we know.
Says the dipshit making the tools to commit fraud easier than ever.
Yes. He would really like you and the investors to know how good his fraud device is, but you have to promise not to use it to do crimes. Also, if you are afraid of his fraud device he would like to sell you fraud device protection.