ARE YOU EXPECTING A PHONE CALL FROM JUSTIN TRUDEAU?

ARE YOU EXPECTING A PHONE CALL FROM JUSTIN TRUDEAU?

How many times a day do you answer your phone and expect to speak with another person, only to find that you have been the recipient of a robocall - a computer generated speaker and message? You might be informed by a human sounding voice that Revenue Canada is calling to let you know that you need to immediately pay an overdue income tax bill. Or you may be informed that you won a free three day Bahamian cruise or you may be threatened with a law suit if you do not call a given number immediately. Robocalls have become one of the new scourges of our technological age. 

Nearly 30% of all calls made each day are robocalls.  Americans received 26.3 billion robocalls last year — a 46% surge from 2017 — and this March alone set a new monthly record with 5.23 billion robocalls, according to data from YouMail. Meanwhile, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission says unwanted calls are the biggest consumer complaint made to the agency each year. (It received 7.1 million complaints about robocalls in 2017). But the really bad news is that it is going to get a lot worse and more dangerous.

Most of us defend ourselves from this nuisance by using caller ID to identify the person who is calling us. If we recognize the number, we will answer the phone and if it is an unknown number or area code, we will often ignore it. Well, that strategy will soon become more ineffective than losing weight through meditation. A robocall, using spoofing technology, will now be able to fool you by showing a phone number from your cellphone or computer address book on your caller ID. You answer because you think you know the caller, but you will be wrong. 

Technology and artificial intelligence (AI) are compounding our world everyday. Deepfake is an AI synthesis technique that can combine two source images or videos with two different ones. For example, the voice and face of Barack Obama can be superimposed onto a video of Trump delivering a ranting monologue that is so convincing that the viewer would be awestruck at the performance. Of course, the dangers of this kind of AI could be quite staggering. Deepfakes may be used to create fake celebrity videos or revenge porn or used to create fake news and malicious hoaxes. Facial and voice manipulation is becoming so sophisticated that the casual viewer thinks that the videos or voices they see and hear are authentic.

Don’t be surprised in the near future, if your phone rings and it appears to be from your best friend’s phone, and when you answer it, it will sound like Justin Trudeau’s voice asking for your support and a cash donation. Or instead of a famous voice, it could be me, but I would still be asking for a monetary donation to fund my retirement blog! So be careful out there and be prepared to relegate your caller ID contract to the obsolete technology pile very soon!