OpenAI CEO Sam Altman warned the financial industry of a �significant impending fraud crisis� because of the ability of artificial intelligence tools to impersonate a person’s voice to bypass security checks and move money.

Altman spoke at a Federal Reserve conference Tuesday in Washington.

�A thing that terrifies me is apparently there are still some financial institutions that will accept the voiceprint as authentication,� Altman said. �That is a crazy thing to still be doing. AI has fully defeated that.�

Voiceprinting as an identification for wealthy bank clients grew popular more than a decade ago, with customers typically asked to utter a challenge phrase into the phone to access their accounts.

But now AI voice clones, and eventually video clones, can impersonate people in a way that Altman said is increasingly �indistinguishable from reality� and will require new methods for verification.

�That might be something we can think about partnering on,� said Fed Vice Chair for Supervision Michelle Bowman, the central bank�s top financial regulator, who was hosting the discussion with Altman.

(AP)