Tonight on 60 Minutes...

Well this dark timeline just keeps getting darker, doesn't it? Phone scammers, widely regarded as the world's third worst people right after billionaires and Republican governors, are now using voice-cloning technology to rip people off.

Pictured: Sarah Huckabee Sanders singing a bill that prevents trans people
from using the correct bathrooms in school. Why? I don't know, I guess because
she doesn't understand what gender dysphoria is and can't be bothered to learn.

"If you commit a crime in one of my
fulfillment centers you can."

-some billionaire

What even is any of this? More AI nonsense is what it is. Using a sample of a loved one's voice, nefarious people--uh, to be clear, phone scammers, not billionaires or Republican governors in this case--can use AI software to imitate them and then trick you into sending them money with some kind of fake emergency. Well, not you, you're way too savvy, but someone. After all, if grandma calls and says you need to send her Amazon gift cards to post bail, you'd do it, right? Even though you've never heard of a municipality that lets you post bail in gift cards?

"You need to send ten grand in rare, graded 
Pokémon Cards, or they'll take the house!"

-probably a scammer

Of course you would, even though the gift card thing should be an obvious tip off. According to the FTC warning about this, rather than cash, the fraudsters will ask you to wire money or send gift cards or crypto or something, you know, for crime reasons and-wait, is crypto just used for crime purposes? Like, what else is it even for? Anyway, no amount of voice-cloning software makes a sudden plea for crypto currency sound legit, but evidently they're banking on a combination of the voice and the emergency to fool people. "Don't trust the voice." The FTC ominously warns and that's just bleak. 

We're supposed to hang up and call them back to make sure they're for real. And suddenly we find ourselves in some hack sci-fi scenario where we have to get a shapeshifter or a robot duplicate of someone we care about to prove that they are who they say they are by answering some personal question that only they would know. All because some asshat wants to run a phone scam instead of getting a real job. Which is shitty. But hey, at least it's not as bad as signing bathroom bills in Arkansas. 

I'm going to call bullshit on this stock photo that comes up when you search
"phone scammer." I mean, that desk is way too clean, and where are the empty
cans of Monster energy drink? And could they not find a tracksuit for him?