“No longer can we trust seeing is believing or ‘I heard it with my own ears,’” Jennifer DeStefano said. “There is no limit to the depth of evil AI can enable.”
January 20 started out like most typical Friday afternoons for Scottsdale, Arizona resident Jennifer DeStefano. The mother of two had just picked up her youngest daughter from dance practice when she received a call from an unknown number. She almost let the number go to voicemail but decided to pick it up on its final ring. DeStefano says what happened over the next few moments will likely haunt her for the rest of her life. She didn’t know it yet, but the Arizona resident was about to become a key figure in the rapidly emerging trend of AI deepfake kidnapping scams.
DeStefano recounted her experience in gripping detail during a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing Tuesday discussing the real-world impacts of generative artificial intelligence on human rights. She recalls the crying voice on the other end of the call sounding nearly identical to her 15-old-daughter Brie, who was away on a ski trip with her father.
“Mom, I messed up,” the voice said between spurts of crying. “Mom these bad men have me, help me, help me.”
A man’s voice suddenly appeared on the call and demanded a ransom of $1 million dollar hand-delivered for Brie’s safe return. The man threatened DeStefano against calling for help and said he would drug her teen daughter, “have his way with her,” and murder her if she called law enforcement. Brie’s younger sister heard all of this over speakerphone. None of that, it turns out was true. “Brie’s” voice was actually an AI-generated deepfake. The kidnapper was a scammer looking to make an easy buck.
“I will never be able to shake that voice and the desperate cries for help out of my mind,” DeStefano said, fighting back tears. “It’s every parent’s worst nightmare to hear their child pleading in fear and pain, knowing that they are being harmed and are helpless.”
The mother’s story points to both troubling new areas of AI abuse and a massive deficiency of laws needed to hold bad actors accountable.
