As artificial intelligence evolves, so does its criminal potential

John Markoff, writing for the New York Times:

Imagine receiving a phone call from your aging mother seeking your help because she has forgotten her banking password.

Except it’s not your mother. The voice on the other end of the phone call just sounds deceptively like her.

It is actually a computer-synthesized voice, a tour-de-force of artificial intelligence technology that has been crafted to make it possible for someone to masquerade via the telephone.

Such a situation is still science fiction — but just barely. It is also the future of crime.

Very believable to me. If they can stick a perfect simulation of Audrey Hepburn in a modern TV ad, it’s not a far stretch to imagine them simulating my mom’s voice.

Scary.