Alexa could be trained to imitate a voice using pre-recorded audio, meaning the person doesn’t have to be present – or even alive – to serve as a source. In a video segment shown during a conference this week, a child asked Alexa if grandma could finish reading The Wizard of Oz. Sure enough, Alexa changes voices to mock the child’s grandmother and finish reading the story. Prasad said during the presentation that Alexa now receives billions of requests per week from hundreds of millions of Alexa-enabled devices across 17 languages in more than 70 countries around the globe. The potential for abuse seems high. For example, the tool could be used to create convincing deepfakes for misinformation campaigns or political propaganda. Fraudsters could leverage the capabilities for financial gain, like in 2020 when scammers tricked a bank manager into transferring $35 million to fund an acquisition that didn’t exist. Image credit: Jan Antonin Kolar
