Tech firms step up efforts to detect deepfake scourge

Tech firms are fighting the scourge of deepfakes, those deceptively realistic voices or videos used by scammers that are now more available thanks to artificial intelligence.

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Las Vegas -

Ever-improving generative artificial intelligence (GenAI) tools have become weapons in the hands of bad actors intent on tricking people out of their money or even their identities.

Debby Bodkin tells of her 93-year-old mother receiving a telephone call, a cloned voice claiming: "It's me, mom... I've had an accident."

Asked where they were, the machine-made impersonator named a hospital. Fortunately, it was a granddaughter who answered the phone.

She opted to hang up and call Bodkin at work, where she was safe and well.

"It's not the first time scammers have called grandma," Bodkin said. "It's daily."