When Sam Altman talks….

Ran across this recently. Making sure your family has a “safe word” is now more important than ever.

Altman Warns: Use a Safe Word
In an interview with Tucker Carlson, Sam Altman said the quiet part out loud: you can no longer trust voice, video, or text by default. His recommendation was stark—families may need rotating “safe words” to verify identity during sensitive interactions.
The concern is no longer future-facing. Voice cloning, real-time impersonation, and deepfake scams are already operational. Altman’s message wasn’t that AI might get there—it’s that it already has.
When the CEO of OpenAI says you shouldn’t assume what you see or hear is real anymore, that’s not hype. It’s an admission of arrival. Source: https://www.aiornot.com/

The AI world is moving so fast. I found a 2023 article on how you make your own voice recording, using nothing more than your phone. It’s meant so that you can use your iPhone to speak, outloud, the words you type. Fabulous for the speech-impaired or even if you are just suffering laryngitis… but also scary. My trial “personal voice” sounds pretty real to me. If I were nefarious, I could combine it with some background noise (a truck stop?) and make a convincing scam phone call to a frantic relative.

So make sure your extended family does have a code phrase or family word, and change it regularly.

Tip: Chat GPT is butting in to say: Choose something ordinary, not alarming (“blue notebook,” “Tuesday soup”), so it doesn’t raise suspicion if overheard. [Ed. Note: Tuesday soup?]