Authorities in China say a scammer used artificial intelligence to pose as a trusted friend of a businessman and convince him to hand over millions of yuan.
Last month, the victim, surnamed Guo, received a video call from someone who appeared and sounded like a close friend.
According to an article published Monday by a government-affiliated media portal in the southern city of Fuzhou, the caller was a con artist “using smart AI technology to change their face” and voice.
According to the article, the scammer was “masquerading as (Guo’s) good friend and perpetrating fraud.”
Guo was persuaded to transfer 4.3 million yuan ($609,000) after the fraudster claimed another friend required the funds to be transferred from a company bank account in order to pay the guarantee on a public tender.
The con artist requested Guo’s personal bank account number before claiming that an equivalent amount had been wired to that account and sending him a screenshot of a fraudulent payment record.
Without checking that he had received the money, Guo sent two payments from his company account totalling the amount requested.
“At the time, I verified the face and voice of the person video-calling me, so I let down my guard,” the article quoted Guo as saying.
He only realised his mistake after messaging the friend whose identity had been stolen, who had no knowledge of the transaction.
Guo alerted police, who notified a bank in another city not to proceed with the transfers, and he managed to recover 3.4 million yuan, the article said.
It added that efforts to claw back the remaining funds were ongoing but it did not identify the perpetrators of the scheme.
The potential pitfalls of groundbreaking AI technology have received heightened attention since US-based company OpenAI in November launched ChatGPT, a chatbot that mimics human speech.
China has announced ambitious plans to become a global AI leader by 2030, and a slew of tech firms including Alibaba, JD.com, NetEase and TikTok parent ByteDance have rushed to develop similar products.
ChatGPT is unavailable in China, but the American software is acquiring a base of Chinese users who use virtual private networks to gain access to it for writing essays and cramming for exams.
But it is also being used for more nefarious purposes.
This month police in the northwestern province of Gansu said “coercive measures” had been taken against a man who used ChatGPT to create a fake news article about a deadly bus crash that was spread widely on social media.
A law regulating deepfakes, which came into effect in January, bans the use of the technology to produce, publish or transmit false news.
And a draft law proposed last month by Beijing’s internet regulator would require all new AI products to undergo a “security assessment” before being released to the public.