LAKE COUNTY — A Northern Michigan sheriff warning about scammers now using artificial intelligence to trick people, in an attempt to hit your pocketbook.
Lake County Sheriff Rich Martin said AI is being used more and more to deceive people into thinking they are talking to a certain person, agency or organization.
“We’re trying to educate people, get that stuff out there because it’s happening. And I think it’s going to increase as we move on as technology gets even better,” said Martin.
He said as time passes, it gets more and more realistic.
“When it comes to this type of scamming is 100% for money, whether it is a romance scam or if it is some type of criminal scam. It’s all about money. It doesn’t take anything to make recordings, videos, pictures that are completely 100% fabricated. Myself, as being an elected official, I’ve seen this myself where people have made videos and text messages and things that were fabricated that didn’t exist,” said Martin.
Martin said scammers are doing this through various methods, including sophisticated phishing scams, spoofing phone numbers, and Deepfakes. Deepfakes are any image, video, or audio that’s been digitally altered so they appear to be someone else.
“It’s getting where it’s harder for the layman, if you will, to know if it’s the truth or no,” said Martin.
Scammers have been pretending to be companies you deal with, groups or agencies, including law enforcement, and well-known figures.
Others try to be your friend or potential love interest.
“Unfortunately, they try to target people that are the most vulnerable, know the older population or, you know, the single population. All those types of things where people are looking for certain things they don’t have,” said Martin.
Martin advises having a password in advance to verify the identity of the people you know that you’re dealing with.
“My grandsons call me from Missouri saying they’re in jail and I need $1,000. Okay, sounds like them. ‘I don’t know why they’re in Missouri, but what’s our code word to verify that it’s you,” said Martin
He said there are tell-tale signs that can help you determine if it’s fake, like anatomical mistakes, spelling mistakes, common items in wrong places, repeating patterns in places you wouldn’t normally see like in hair, fur, or foliage, or violation of physics.
“They may have, you know, blink their eyes or they may blink one eye or they may, you know, you know, further brow, you know, those types of things. You don’t see a lot of that stuff. I always say ‘it’s looks soulless. You won’t see the blemishes; you won’t see scars and stretch marks. You won’t see big ears. You know, those types of things,” said Martin.
He said if something doesn’t feel right, verify another way to make sure the person who contacted you are who they say they are and trust your gut. If something feels off, it probably is. He said you can also call law enforcement.
“To not be a victim of a crime, you have to be proactive. Don’t ever think that you can take everything at face value for what it is,” said Martin.
