Imagine you meeting Someone is new. Whether it's on dating apps or social media, we take opportunities and talk to each other online. They are genuine and friendly, so quickly take them out of your DMS to platforms like Telegram and WhatsApp. Exchange photo and video calls. You start to feel comfortable. Then, all of a sudden, they raise money.
Maybe you need to cover the costs of Wi-Fi access. Or they're trying out this new cryptocurrency. You should really get into it soon! And only after it's too late you will realize that the person you were talking to was not actually real at all.
They were deepfakes generated by real-time AI hiding the face of someone running a scam.
This scenario may sound like dystopia and science fictionality aren't true, but it has already happened to countless people. With the surge in the capabilities of generative AI over the past few years, scammers can create realistic fake faces and voices to hide themselves in real time. And experts warn that these deepfakes can charge a variety of dizzying online scams, from romance to employment to tax scams.
David Maimon, director of fraud insights at identity verification firm Sentilink and professor of criminology at Georgia State University, has tracked the evolution of AI romance scams and other types of AI scams over the past six years. “The amount of deepfakes has increased dramatically, especially compared to 2023 and 2024,” says Maimon.
“It wasn't that much. We probably talk about four or five a month,” he says. “Now we're looking at hundreds of these things all over the board. This seems daunting.”
Deepfakes are already being used in a variety of online scams. For example, one financial worker in Hong Kong paid $25 million to a scammer who pretended to be the company's chief financial officer over a deep video call. Some deepfake scammers have posted educational videos on YouTube. This has a disclaimer that is “only for mischief and educational purposes.” These videos usually open with romance scam calls. There, a handsome young man, generated by AI, talks to an older woman.
More traditional deepfakes, such as pre-rendered videos of celebrities and politicians, will also become more common, rather than live fakes. Last year, New Zealand retirees lost around $133,000 to cryptocurrency investment scams after seeing a Facebook ad featuring the country's prime minister deepfakes, where people encouraged purchases.
Maimon said Sentilink has begun seeing deepfakes used to create bank accounts to lease apartments and engage in tax refund scams. He says more and more companies have seen deepfakes in video job interviews.
“Anything that supports people asking them to be online and the opportunity to exchange faces with someone will be available to them and fraud is available,” Maimon says.
