In a stark and urgent warning to the nation’s financial stewards, OpenAI CEO Sam Altman declared on Tuesday that artificial intelligence is now so adept at mimicking human voices it could spark a global “fraud crisis” in banking “very, very soon.” His remarks, delivered at a Federal Reserve conference in Washington, underscored how people will have to change fundamental things about the way they interact because of the relentless pace of advancements in this technology.
Altman addressed hundreds of regulators and banking executives while sitting down for an interview with Fed governor Michelle Bowman, the vice chair for supervision. Bowman, who has emerged as a contender to potentially succeed Fed chair Jerome Powell, prompted Altman to talk about the technology he helped pioneer and concerns about fraud.
Altman immediately brought up how powerful AI models are now capable of perfectly reproducing anyone’s voice based on just a few short audio samples and issued his warning: “A thing that terrifies me is apparently there are still some financial institutions that will accept the voiceprint as authentication for you to move a lot of money or do something else,” Altman told the audience. “That is a crazy thing to still be doing … AI has fully defeated that.”
