SAN FRANCISCO–The CEO of OpenAI is warning financial institutions they face a “significant impending fraud crisis” as the result of advances in artificial intelligence (AI) that convincingly impersonate someone’s voice to get around security protocols and move funds,
In remarks to a Federal Reserve conference in Washington, Sam Altman said, “A thing that terrifies me is apparently there are still some financial institutions that will accept the voiceprint as authentication. That is a crazy thing to still be doing. AI has fully defeated that.”
Altman’s comments were first reported by the Associated Press.
‘I Am Very Nervous’
While the technology has more often been used by larger banks to confirm the identity of wealthier clients, some credit unions have also invested in or explored so-called voice printing solutions. Those systems typically require users to say a challenge phrase into their phones to get to their accounts.
“I am very nervous that we have an impending, significant, impending fraud crisis,” the AP quoted Altman as saying. “Right now, it’s a voice call; soon it’s going to be a video or FaceTime that’s indistinguishable from reality.”
As the AP noted, such a scenario has already happened when in an infamous 2024 case, when a finance worker in Hong Kong transferred $25 million to scammers following a video call with what appeared to be the company’s chief financial officer and other executives. In reality, every participant on the call was a deepfake, the AP reminded.
Fed Vice Chair Seeks to Partner
Michelle Bowman, vice chair for supervision with the Fed who was also at the meeting, said a partnership between the Fed and OpenAI is something to be considered.
