Steve Wozniak says AI may make scams, misinformation harder to spot

Artificial Intelligence (AI) can make scams difficult to detect, said Apple Co-founder Steve Wozniak.

Here is what Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak has to say on AI. (REUTERS)

Ever since Artificial Intelligence (AI) grabbed public attention, as well as those of businesses and authorities, it has been both praised and reviled in equal measure. It comes with a lot of advantages and useful services to offer along with a fair share of cons too. Recently in an interview with BBC, Apple co-founder, along with the iconic Steve Jobs, Steve Wozniak has spoken on the problems AI can bring. One of the problems he is most worried about is that AI can make detecting scams and misinformation difficult.

Along with Tesla CEO Elon Musk, Wozniak also signed a letter in the month of March 2023 calling for pause in the development of AI models. Speaking to the BBC, Wozniak spoke on the benefits and problems of AI.

Wozniak warned that AI content should be clearly labelled, and regulation was needed for the sector. "AI is so intelligent it's open to the bad players, the ones that want to trick you about who they are," he said.

Wozniak is of the belief that though AI will not replace people as it lacks emotion, it will make bad actors even more convincing, as programmes like ChatGPT can create text which "sounds so intelligent".

The co-founder thinks that the responsibility for anything generated by Artificial Intelligence which is then posted to the public, should rest with those who publish it: "A human really has to take the responsibility for what is generated by AI," he said as quoted by BBC.

He wants regulation to hold to account the big tech firms which "feel they can kind of get away with anything". But he sounded a note of scepticism that regulators would get it right as he said "I think the forces that drive for money usually win out, which is sort of sad."

Wozniak also added that missed opportunities at the birth of the internet have lessons for today's architects of artificial intelligence. He believes "we can't stop the technology", but we can prepare people so they are better educated to spot fraud and malicious attempts to take personal information.

What Wozniak is referring to are online scams. Most recently the cases of AI Voice scams have been seen rising phenomenally. In AI voice scams, scammers pick the voices of people from their social media accounts, clone it via AI and then use it to fool people and demand money. McAfee's study has found that the AI voice scams are becoming quite common.

"A quarter of adults surveyed globally have experience of an AI voice scam, with one in 10 targeted personally, and 15% saying somebody they know has been targeted. When you break it down by country, it's most common in India, with 47% of respondents saying they had either been a victim themselves (20%) or knew somebody else who had (27%). The United States is second, with 14% saying it happened to them and 18% to a friend or relative. The U.K. comes third with 8% saying it happened to them directly and 16% to someone they know."