AI-powered bot successfully requested refund from Wells Fargo using FAKE voice

01/20/2023 / By Belle Carter

Joshua Browder, the founder of DoNotPay, showed in a video shared on Twitter his newly launched artificial intelligence (AI) tool’s ability to handle customer service calls on behalf of users.

Browder said using an AI-generated version of Browder’s own voice, it successfully requested a refund from Wells Fargo, a San Francisco-based multinational financial services company.

The startup, which has been known for automating tasks such as appealing parking tickets and canceling subscriptions, markets this new “robot” system with the battle cry: “Why endure a lengthy call with a bank when a convenient AI-powered bot can handle it for you?”

“We plan on making the tool publicly available with a range of generic custom voices, but to have the user’s own voice will be a premium option,” Browder told Motherboard in an online chat.

The tweet has since been taken down for apparently violating the Twitter Rules.

In the video, Bowder’s fake voice can be heard saying: “Hi, I’m calling to get a refund for wire transfer fees.” The customer service representative then asked for the caller’s first and last name, which is a standard operating procedure for security and safety. The bot easily supplied the personal information. The AI and the agent then discussed the disputed wire transfer fees, ultimately settling on the fees charged over the past three months.

Great Game India news site reported that the conversation between them sounded very “stilted and unnatural” as there were long pauses as the bot processed the representatives’ responses so it can banter.

“It’s difficult not to feel sympathy for the Wells Fargo worker who had to remain silent while the bot performed its tasks. However, the bot appears to be successful in securing the requested refunds, based on the video,” the article stated.

As a usual sign of real people’s politeness and gratitude, the bot even closed the conversation by saying, “thank you for your help.” Browder also boasted how his bots called Wells Fargo a dozen times to test the flow.

The British-American entrepreneur revealed that the tool was created using a combination of Resemble.ai (a platform that enables users to generate their own AI voices), GPT-J (an open-source casual language model) and DoNotPay’s own AI models for the script. Previously, DoNotPay employed AI-driven bots to negotiate Comcast bills.

In a response statement, Wells Fargo said that upon reviewing the call recordings, the conversation didn’t happen the way it was presented in the video. “It appears the customer’s video recording of this call was edited to look like a bot was interacting with a customer service representative,” the company stated, but Browder told Motherboard the video was not edited, except for removing his account number from the start of the clip.

Bowder: “Robot lawyer” offers cheaper legal services

Meanwhile, an AI court trial will take place in February, with a DoNotPay robot lawyer set to defend a human in court for the first time. (Related: Humans are no match for artificial intelligence – “It’s not even close,” says Nobel laureate.)

Browder said his company will pay two defendants going to traffic court up to $1,000 each to wear smart glasses that will double up as their attorneys. The locations of the hearings have been undisclosed to prevent judges from derailing the stunts ahead of time. Each defendant will have the option to opt out if they choose.

“My goal is that the ordinary, average consumer never has to hire a lawyer again,” the startup owner said.

Bowder told the Daily Beast that the CatXQ’s smart glasses will record the proceedings and a chatbot that is built on OpenAI’s GPT-3, famous for transcribing ballads and high school essays on demand, will offer legal arguments in real time.

The glasses will have square lenses and a spindly black frame, which can connect to devices via Bluetooth and deliver sounds straight to the wearer’s cochlea, the hearing organ in the inner ear, through bone conduction, which is similar to how some hearing aids work.

The chatbot will exist on the defendant’s phone as a regular app, absorbing audio through the device’s microphone, and dictating legal arguments through the glasses.

FutureTech.news has more stories on futuristic technology “breakthroughs” such as AI bots.

Watch the video below where World Economic Forum’s top advisor Yuval Noah Harari revealed AI can take control over humanity.

This video is from the Thrivetime Show channel on Brighteon.com.