The phone rings, and it’s your grandson’s shaken voice. There’s been an accident, he says, and he needs money before anyone finds out. Except it isn’t him. It’s software that learned his voice from a clip posted online, run by a stranger working through a list of phone numbers.
For years, warnings about artificial intelligence and cybersecurity have focused on corporate networks and government systems. Those threats are real. But if you follow the money in the FBI’s fraud data, a different picture emerges: Staggering sums are flowing out of household accounts.