MILWAUKEE — You may have heard of artificial intelligence (A.I.) or ChatGPT, new technology used for a variety of things. The I-Team found this new technology is using social media to cause harm.
It's as simple as answering the phone. It sounds like a familiar voice, but is it really someone you know?
"What they want to do is they want to get that family member to quickly get emotionally invested in the situation," Michael Domke said.
Domke's the director of the Consumer Protection Bureau for the Wisconsin Department of Trade, Agriculture, and Consumer Protection (DATCP). He said callers are using the decades-old "Grandparent Scam."
"One scenario is you have a grandchild that's on spring break or on vacation somewhere with friends, and maybe they got in trouble, and so they suddenly need bail money," Domke explained.
Previously, callers would pretend to be your loved one, but now A.I. is making things even scarier.
"So basically we have these people, scammers, that go online to a person's Facebook, Instagram, or TikTok's, and they're able to retrieve snippets of videos to capture their voices," Shorewood Police Captain, Fernando Santiago, said.
Police said callers are using that A.I. and that voice to create any message they want.
Right now, Shorewood Police don't have any reports of this happening, but the state Consumer Protection Bureau has several. We asked the cyber experts at ValorTech to show us what it sounds like using the I-Team's Jenna Rae's voice.
ValorTech President, Bryan Sevener, said people need to start protecting themselves.
"If you wanna have social media, great, but maybe instead of having it be publicly available, lock it down to people you actually trust," Sevener said.
Experts also recommend having a "secret word" so family members know if they're getting a fake call.
"Setting keywords, setting boundaries for kids, using applications like Life360, making sure where they are, watching their communications, watching what they're putting out there, and who they're talking to all goes a long ways to protecting your kids," Sevener explained.
If this has happened to you or someone you know, report it to your local law enforcement and DATCP.
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