Let me know when the podcast drops!

PlayStation Power www.retromags.com/magazines/uk...

What you think of a particular language, dialect, or accent is about your attitude towards the people who use it, not some intrinsic property of the linguistic variety itself

All varieties are valid, systematic, worthy of study and respect

AI education could be crucial in tackling rising voice scams A new study from Abertay University reveals that the most effective way to protect people from AI voice scams is not through traditional warning messages, but by educating them about how advanced and authentic AI voices have become.

Educating the public about the realism of AI-generated voices, especially their ability to mimic regional accents, can significantly reduce vulnerability to voice-based scams. doi.org/hbq64f

Vigilance towards AI voices can be nudged through a change in ‘MINDSET’ Abstract. AI-assisted technology is used to create synthetic voices that are highly naturalistic, making it difficult for listeners to distinguish between

I've developed a psychological countermeasure for AI voice deception… and it's surprisingly simple! 🗣️

Thread below 🧵

doi.org/10.1093/cybs...

Vigilance towards AI voices can be nudged through a change in ‘MINDSET’ Abstract. AI-assisted technology is used to create synthetic voices that are highly naturalistic, making it difficult for listeners to distinguish between

Full paper (open access) 👇
doi.org/10.1093/cybs...

• AI voices generated using @elevenlabs.io
• Study designed and run on Gorilla Experiment Builder
• Participants recruited via @joinprolific.bsky.social

This work has just been published in the Journal of Cybersecurity and was possible thanks to a Think Big Leverage Fund award from @the-sipr.bsky.social

In practical terms, AI voice fraud prevention campaigns and public awareness messaging should focus on updating people's knowledge of what AI can do, instead of just telling them to be careful.

But the good news is, we can change their MINDSET to protect them!

Because technology has historically struggled to understand their speech, they don't expect it to sound like them either - so when it does, it seems all the more convincingly human. I call this the MINDSET bias (Minority, Indigenous, Non-standard, and Dialect-Shaped Expectations of Technology).

Why does this matter?

Speakers of regional, minority, and non-standard language varieties are at particular risk of AI voice-based fraud.

But warning them about the potential dangers of AI voices and explicitly encouraging them to be vigilant did nothing!

While my previous work showed that people are more likely to assume an AI voice is human when it speaks in a familiar local dialect, my new paper shows that simply telling people that AI can authentically use regional accents and dialects is enough to increase their vigilance.

Vigilance towards AI voices can be nudged through a change in ‘MINDSET’ Abstract. AI-assisted technology is used to create synthetic voices that are highly naturalistic, making it difficult for listeners to distinguish between

I've developed a psychological countermeasure for AI voice deception… and it's surprisingly simple! 🗣️

Thread below 🧵

doi.org/10.1093/cybs...

A selfie of me wearing a patterned Christmas jumper

Tis the season

Too Authentic to be Synthetic: The Psychology Behind AI Voice Scams As AI voices become eerily realistic, new research shows that the instinct to trust our own accents could make us more vulnerable to deepfakes

As synthetic voices become indistinguishable from real ones, DIGIT spoke with psychologist Dr Neil Kirk about how our instinct to trust our own accents could make way for deepfakes targeting not just individuals, but entire regions.

www.digit.fyi/psychology-b...
#deepfakes #AIvoices #AyeRobot

Too Authentic to be Synthetic: The Psychology Behind AI Voice Scams As AI voices become eerily realistic, new research shows that the instinct to trust our own accents could make us more vulnerable to deepfakes

Here's a feature on my recent AI Voice work - really honoured to have been asked to talk about this! www.digit.fyi/psychology-b...

🧠 Is your mindset making you more vulnerable to AI voice-based deception?

I've got a new pre-print out: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Vigilance towards AI voices can be nudged through a change in MINDSET

Thread below 👇

#AI #Voice #Cybersecurity #Fraud #Psychology 1/11

Very grateful to @the-sipr.bsky.social for funding this important work. 11/11

💡 Why it matters: This could have real-world implications for designing public awareness campaigns and scam prevention messages. 10/11

🏠 Take-Home Message: Simply telling people that AI voices can speak with a Scottish accent/dialect was far more effective than warning them to be vigilant. 9/11

However, an explicit vigilance-based nudge warning about the dangers of AI voices and urging listeners “if in doubt, think AI” had no effect, unless paired with the capability message about AI’s linguistic abilities. 8/11

A positively framed nudge highlighting AI’s capability to reproduce underrepresented accents and dialects significantly reduced this bias – in other words, changing their MINDSET made them more vigilant towards AI voices using these varieties. 7/11

In this manuscript, I investigate whether simple informational nudges can shift these assumptions and reduce the bias for responding “Human”. Across two experiments, participants categorised voices as either Human or AI. 6/11

Yet that assumption could be putting some language communities at greater risk of AI voice-based deception if they believe a voice speaking that way must be a real person. 5/11

In my new paper, I introduce the concept of MINDSET: Minority, Indigenous, Non-standard, and Dialect-Shaped Expectations of Technology. It reflects the idea that people assume AI can’t convincingly reproduce underrepresented ways of speaking. 4/11

I also suspect this is not unique to Scotland, but part of a global pattern affecting communities whose voices have historically been excluded from these systems. 3/11

My previous work showed that listeners were more likely to believe an AI voice was a real human when it spoke in a local dialect. I think this happens because we’re not used to speech technology understanding these varieties - never mind speaking them! 2/11

🧠 Is your mindset making you more vulnerable to AI voice-based deception?

I've got a new pre-print out: osf.io/preprints/ps...

Vigilance towards AI voices can be nudged through a change in MINDSET

Thread below 👇

#AI #Voice #Cybersecurity #Fraud #Psychology 1/11

New achievement unlocked - delivering the oration for Brian Cox. I didn’t faint, nor did he use any of his famous catchphrases on me. Success!