Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, has forewarned the financial sector of a “significant impending fraud crisis” due to the capacity of artificial intelligence technologies to mimic human speech and circumvent security measures, thereby facilitating the transfer of funds.
Altman gave a speech Tuesday in Washington at a Federal Reserve meeting.
“It appears that some financial institutions still accept voiceprints as authentication, which terrifies me,” Altman remarked. “It is absurd that you are still doing that. AI has completely beaten that.
More than ten years ago, voiceprinting became a common method of identifying rich bank customers. To access their accounts, users were usually required to say a challenge phrase into the phone.
However, Altman stated that the ability of AI voice clones and eventually video clones to mimic people is becoming more “indistinguishable from reality” and will necessitate the development of new verification techniques.
The Fed’s senior financial regulator, Michelle Bowman, who was hosting the conversation with Altman, said, “That might be something we can think about partnering on.”
