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304
Dangerous? Signal Blasts Google Effort to Use AI to Scan for Scam Phone Calls (uk.pcmag.com)
submitted 8 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
45 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

Google’s AI model will potentially listen in on all your phone calls — or at least ones it suspects are coming from a fraudster.

To protect the user’s privacy, the company says Gemini Nano operates locally, without connecting to the internet. “This protection all happens on-device, so your conversation stays private to you. We’ll share more about this opt-in feature later this year,” the company says.

“This is incredibly dangerous,” says Meredith Whittaker, the president of a foundation for the end-to-end encrypted messaging app Signal.

Whittaker —a former Google employee— argues that the entire premise of the anti-scam call feature poses a potential threat. That’s because Google could potentially program the same technology to scan for other keywords, like asking for access to abortion services.

“It lays the path for centralized, device-level client-side scanning,” she said in a post on Twitter/X. “From detecting 'scams' it's a short step to ‘detecting patterns commonly associated w/ seeking reproductive care’ or ‘commonly associated w/ providing LGBTQ resources' or ‘commonly associated with tech worker whistleblowing.’”

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[–] [email protected] 10 points 8 months ago (3 children)

It might be a good feature for the elderly as long as it's local and optionally enabled (especially if it can be enabled only for unknown callers).

Yes, I understand you would never really know if it's not always enabled. But then again, you currently don't know if anything similar isn't already enabled.

For other users, again potentially useful if it's opt in. However, many people (myself included) simply don't answer the phone anymore unless it's a caller we already know. I use Google's call screening feature for any other caller not in my contact list already, and I would estimate about 1 in 20 or 5% of such calls I receive aren't spam (marketing or fraud). Of those non-spam calls, the majority are appointment reminders I don't need.

So would I turn this feature on? No, I don't have a need. Could it be beneficial for the elderly? Yes, but probably not implemented in a way where it would actually be effective.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 8 months ago

Honestly, if it was transparent enough, I'd be fine with a service you could turn on that would listen to the first x seconds/minutes of a phone call to try and detect an AI generated voice. I have family that would 100% wire thousands of dollars if someone with their kid's voice asked them to.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago* (last edited 8 months ago) (1 children)

Think of the ~~children~~ elderly!

[–] [email protected] 1 points 8 months ago (1 children)

I mean, yeah, exactly. Keep in mind scammers are targeting vulnerable people. Granted I don't see how such a feature will work on my grandmother's flip phone.