Google Will Use Gemini To Detect Scams During Calls (techcrunch.com) 57
At Google I/O on Tuesday, Google previewed a feature that will alert users to potential scams during a phone call. TechCrunch reports: The feature, which will be built into a future version of Android, uses Gemini Nano, the smallest version of Google's generative AI offering, which can be run entirely on-device. The system effectively listens for "conversation patterns commonly associated with scams" in real time. Google gives the example of someone pretending to be a "bank representative." Common scammer tactics like password requests and gift cards will also trigger the system. These are all pretty well understood to be ways of extracting your money from you, but plenty of people in the world are still vulnerable to these sorts of scams. Once set off, it will pop up a notification that the user may be falling prey to unsavory characters.
No specific release date has been set for the feature. Like many of these things, Google is previewing how much Gemini Nano will be able to do down the road sometime. We do know, however, that the feature will be opt-in.
No specific release date has been set for the feature. Like many of these things, Google is previewing how much Gemini Nano will be able to do down the road sometime. We do know, however, that the feature will be opt-in.
Effectively listens. (Score:1)
If you weren’t convinced enough that privacy is dead and society killed it, just wait until you see how many are very excited to install software that effectively listens to every conversation going on within a microphone-array-bragging distance.
Which of course would never be “anonymized” and sold off. To scam callers.
In order to protect you. From scam callers.
Re: (Score:2)
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I don't like the idea, absent of a warrant, of anyone listening in on my calls, human or non-human. The concept is entirely invasive.
Instead, improve the methods of stanching scam call originators, through SIP control, and banning the issuance of US numbers to outside sources, e.g. Google Voice, etc.
Reverse tracerouting of calls would be a glorious invention.
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yes but those are logical steps proposed by a meat popsicle. we are talking about Al here. perhaps you can have the Al generate these steps and then maybe some will accept them as reasonable.
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And so who does AI also sift other keywords and send that data to? It's once again a case of AI hell, the road paved with good intentions. If it can sift for scams, can it also use voice microtremors to detect someone's lying? Or signal law enforcement that a probable crime is about to take place? What are the actual boundaries here?
No one or thing should be listening in on my conversations. It's not paranoia, it's the basis for privacy. This is one of the more Big Brother-ish miss-applications of AI that I
Re: Effectively listens. (Score:2)
Could it just automatically just disconnect the user from the call and start swearing up a storm to the scammer? There are robocall services that will do this for you.
I can see it now (Score:5, Funny)
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Re: I can see it now (Score:2)
"You will hear two ends to the conversation. The voice we know well and have heard in all past audio prompts is the user. The new voice is the possible scammer. Do not inherently trust what the scammer says, be skeptical of their every word."
The future you want is just a prompt away!
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How are you going to see this if you have the phone to your ear talking to the scammer?
A voice-over I expect. However YouTube videos by Jim Browning have shown him breaking in to calls by scammers to old ladies and ending up in 3-way arguments about who is who and what is what. He tries to get the old ladies simply to hang up, but it is very difficult to persuade them because they seem to thinks that's rude, and that they should feel sorry for people with Indian accents who sound like saints. If the Godfather of scambaiters can't do it, what chance does a robot voice have?
Re: "pop up a notification" (Score:2)
Force the user. Easy. Do not allow scammers to succeed.
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Haven't you seen how people talk on their phones these days? They walk around in public places, using the speakerphone, talking into the end of their phone, so everybody around them can hear their conversation, and see who they are talking to. It's a thing.
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Well, most people have an auditory sound associated with notifications, and that sound can be played through the earpiece...
Google,I will be listening to all your phone calls (Score:3)
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Do you think when they say it runs entirely on - device this is a blatant lie?
Do you think this is a different problem than the current Pixel dialer?
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Just because it runs entirely on device doesn't mean it can't have a telemetry component. And even if it somehow doesn't, it's just waiting to have some malicious code piggyback on it.
Re: Google,I will be listening to all your phone c (Score:2)
Your phone is just a carrier provisioned pushed silent app away from doing or recording anything.... yeah, we should stop paying for phone numbers.
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We do know there will be a setting giving users the sense that the scanning is entirely off, and that 'off' in this context means what a reasonable person would assume, and that the true semantics of that setting will never be changed by google or its subsidiaries and shareholders, because there's no money to be made in so doing.
Of course, the larger privacy battle is already lost the instant one carries a phone.
It's arguable that the people most likely to be snookered by a phone scam are the same people least likely to care about privacy.
Wanna buy a bridge? (Score:3)
the smallest version of Google's generative AI offering, which can be run entirely on-device
If you believe that, I have a bridge to sell you. Sure, it can probably run on-device, but the unstated implication is that it won't send your phone conversations to the cloud. Which you can believe...exactly as much as you want to.
No, Google, you do not have permission to eavesdrop on my phone conversations.
no problem (Score:1)
So they will listen in to calls under the guise of protecting you. And this will never, never be abused. Hey mom, can I have jello for desert? Will dad ever come home from prison?
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I'd rather scam calls didn't happen in the first place, but spotting them with on-device processing could actually help with a real problem [ukfinance.org.uk]
Hopefully we get a decent free software alternative soon.
Re: no problem (Score:3)
Everything you said is perfectly fine as long as Google isn't evil. They still have that "don't be evil" mantra, right??? (Kidding.)
Using AI to further errode privacy (Score:2)
There is one tiny step between detecting scam calls and detecting wrongthink in a private conversation. Delete Google.
How to drive away security aware users. (Score:2)
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LineageOS or CalyxOS. If you're not running a custom ROM it ain't your phone.
Re: How to drive away security aware users. (Score:2)
If you're running a custom ROM, it's probably you phone, assuming you read the source??? Lol.
The little bloop sound (Score:2)
Re: The little bloop sound (Score:2)
Kevin. Short for Kumar.
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... It's also invariably followed by a dude with an Indian accent
Indians don't seem to think they have accents, that the way they say things is the proper way and everyone else is wrong.
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The root cause for that is this: in India, Indians who think they speak English teach other Indians, who teach English too. At the tail of the chain you end up with gibberish. I constantly get called by recruiters who cannot be understood at all, and who mangle speech so badly. This is the speech equivalent of street-shitting level of quality.
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I'm pretty sure the phone companies could get rid of this garbage if they really wanted to.
Yeah, they don't want to. They make money off of telemarketers installing trunk lines.
Hello? Is this Mr X? (Score:2)
My response usually is: "You tell me. You're calling me. You tell me who you are and who are you trying to reach and I may (or not) tell you if you've got through to the right person."
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Don't say anything when you get those calls. They are harvesting voice samples to use to create a deepfake of you.
Never answer the phone unless it is a call you're expecting or from someone in your contact list. Also never record a voicemail greeting - always use a system-generated generic greeting.
Re: Hello? Is this Mr X? (Score:2)
If both sides of a call answer and nobody speaks, it sounds like a game of deep-fake chicken!! No, you speak!
Re: Hello? Is this Mr X? (Score:2)
That's a valid point. A bit extreme but valid in these times. Best way is probably as per comment below - pick up but don't say a word first.
Red Flag No 1 (Score:2)
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Soooo this feature will not be very popular in India.
No silver bullet. (Score:5, Insightful)
No eavesdropping protective technology will ever protect you. Scammers will just get smarter and develop new attack vectors. The only working solution would be a world-wide coordination among all the countries to develop a mandatory caller identification system. Without personal responsibility scam calls will never stop.
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There's a big problem with that: Identifying where the call came from won't give google the ability to seamlessly integrate ads into phone conversations, nor even to forward your conversation to the mothership without people rebelling.
Sure it is (Score:2)
new product: alphabet telephone adwords (Score:2)
Before you can take this call please listen to this advert.
No thanks
battery now only has 60 min talk time as this will (Score:2)
battery now only has 60 min talk time as this will run it down with all the cpu work to pull this off.
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The people who need this (Score:2)
are also the people who would give Gemini permission to listen in on their calls. So maybe it's OK.
Wiretap-by-subpoena (Score:1)
So they will listen in? (Score:2)
And obviously record and get more training data? Great, more reasons not to use their crap!
No problem (Score:2)
The app will transcribe speech to text in real time (routinely done these days) and look for “conversation patterns commonly associated with scams”. You could do this to some extent with a simple dictionary lookup, but they will do something a lot more flexible and incorporate conversation history. This isn't "AI", it can be done using ordinary machine learning models.
"However, being opt-in may also mean that some of the people who can benefit the most from such a feature might never tick that b
No (Score:2)
Google wants to listen in to my phone calls? Uh-uh.
Easy solution (Score:3)
If the caller has a foreign accent hang up immediately. If the caller does not have a foreign accent ask for their name and extension and then hang up. Call the actual bank's number, and ask for so and so at their extension. I know, I know, but my bank uses third world call centers. Change your bank.
omg, you sad people (Score:2)
Don't use the open unencrypted internet. Don't use social media. Always use a PRIVATE VPN and only use encrypted open source messaging XMPP apps. (conversations on android comes to mind) But you want your convenience. So you will pay with your identity.
I get that most people won't be able to do any of this, but most important is that most people would rather deny that it is a problem than change their behaviour or have to learn anythin
This industry can goto hell (Score:1)
So it checks if a call comes from Nigeria? (Score:2)
Now that is what I call progress.