The Machines Are Calling: Measuring Automated and Synthetic Voices in Unwanted Inbound Calls
Voice honeypot measurement finds at least 26.9% of unwanted US inbound calls open with machine voices, 13.1% with fresh synthetic speech.
An interactive voice honeypot using language-model personas on real US numbers recorded 10,987 calls over 66 days, following the FCC's February 2024 ruling that AI-generated voices fall under the TCPA. Of 7,233 greeted calls, 13.8% opened with recordings replayed from other calls and 13.1% with fresh audio labeled synthetic, with replays making up 45% of the detector's flagged rate. Synthetic openings concentrated in lead-generation spam (33.8%) rather than fraud (21.1%), and only 0.44% of calls disclosed automation. Prevalence tracked how long a bait number had circulated, and campaigns outlasted their numbers, with one synthetic voice serving nine campaigns.
- At least 26.9% of unwanted call openings are machine-voiced; 9.9% more are silent connections
- Replayed recordings make up 45% of the synthetic detector's flagged rate
- Synthetic openings concentrate in lead generation (33.8%) over fraud (21.1%)
- Only 0.44% of calls disclose automation
- Seeding history, not calendar time, explains prevalence trends
- Organizations
- FCC
- Countries
- United States
From the original article
1 min read at arxiv.orgIn February 2024 the U. S. Federal Communications Commission (FCC) placed AI-generated voices under the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA).
By Xingyu Shen · arxiv.org
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