Global Courant 2023-05-24 15:23:00
BEIJING — A con man in China used artificial intelligence (AI) to pose as a businessman’s trusted friend and convince him to hand over millions of yuan, authorities said.
The victim, whose last name is Guo, received a video call in April from a person who looked and sounded like a close friend.
But the caller was actually a scammer “using smart AI technology to change (his) face” and voice, according to an article published Monday by a media portal associated with the government in the southern city of Fuzhou.
The scammer “disguised himself as (Guo’s) close friend and committed fraud,” according to the article.
Mr. Guo was persuaded to transfer 4.3 million yuan (S$823,000) after the fraudster claimed that another friend needed the money to be debited from a company bank account to pay the guarantee on a public tender.
The scammer asked for Mr. Guo’s personal bank account number, then claimed that an equivalent amount had been transferred to that account, and sent him a screenshot of a fraudulent payment statement.
Without checking whether he had received the money, Mr. Guo sent two payments from his company account totaling the amount requested.
“At the time, I verified the face and voice of the person who video-called me, so I was not wary,” the article quoted Mr Guo as saying.
He only realized his mistake after sending a message to the friend whose identity was stolen and who had no knowledge of the transaction.
Guo alerted police, who warned a bank in another city not to proceed with the transfers, and managed to recover 3.4 million yuan, the article said.
It added that efforts to recover the remaining funds were ongoing, but it did not identify the perpetrators of the scheme.
The potential pitfalls of breakthrough AI technology have gained more attention since US company OpenAI launched ChatGPT, a chatbot that mimics human speech, in November.
China has announced ambitious plans to become a global AI leader by 2030, and a slew of tech companies including Alibaba, JD.com, NetEase and TikTok parent ByteDance have rushed to develop similar products.
ChatGPT is not available in China, but the US software is acquiring a base of Chinese users who use virtual private networks to access it for essay writing and cramming for exams. However, it is also used for more nefarious purposes.
