this post was submitted on 16 May 2025
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More than half of Americans reported receiving at least one scam call per day in 2024. To combat the rise of sophisticated conversational scams that deceive victims over the course of a phone call, we introduced Scam Detection late last year to U.S.-based English-speaking Phone by Google public beta users on Pixel phones.

We use AI models processed on-device to analyze conversations in real-time and warn users of potential scams. If a caller, for example, tries to get you to provide payment via gift cards to complete a delivery, Scam Detection will alert you through audio and haptic notifications and display a warning on your phone that the call may be a scam.

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[–] thatradomguy@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

Ah, but what if I use a British accent? Got em

[–] Showroom7561@lemmy.ca 7 points 1 day ago (3 children)

We use AI models processed on-device

If it's opt-in, and the processing is done on-device, then I have no reason to be outraged.

But the skeptic in me asks "what's in it for google?".

[–] BetaDoggo_@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

They get a new feature to boast about

[–] stardreamer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 6 points 1 day ago (1 children)

This is common for companies that like to hire PhDs.

PhDs like to work on interesting and challenging projects.

With nobody to reign them in, they do all kinds of cool stuff that makes no money (e.g. Intel Optane and transactional memory).

Designing a realtime scam analysis tool with resource constraints is interesting enough to be greenlit but makes no money.

Once released, they'll move on to the next big challenge, and when nobody is there to maintain their work, it will be silently dropped by Google.

I'm willing to bet more than 70% of the Google graveyard comes from projects like these.

[–] btaf45@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago) (1 children)

With nobody to reign them in, they do all kinds of cool stuff

And they never ever ask themselves "Is this ethically the right thing to do". And so they create things that do way more harm for society than good. For selfish reasons, just because it is a "fun" project. And I'm sure management figures they will profit one way or another the more they control everything thru their AIs they shove on people.

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[–] plyth@feddit.org 3 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Like always, google is doing things for free to get training data.

All things are going into an authoritarian direction which needs control of the opposition. Google will have the infrastructure to identify people with opposing mindsets. There won't be a rebellion if the rebel leaders can be locked up in time.

[–] btaf45@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

All things are going into an authoritarian direction which needs control of the opposition.

Now that we don't have a real president anymore Google started including white house announcements in Google News. I know every one of these is written by an idiot who is not qualified for their job so I turned them off. But why the fuck didn't they do this back when we actually had a real president and these announcements were legitimate newsworthy information? The announcements of a real president were never considered newsworthy information but the babblings of a traitorapist with the mind of a 13 year old are? Fuck you google!

[–] UnpopularCrow@lemmy.world 12 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The article claims that 1 trillion dollars was lost to scams in 2024 “based on research from GASA.org”. I cannot for the life of me figure out where this number comes from. Going to that website they say it’s based on ~58,000 surveys. I think they took the survey results, took the average amount of money the surveys claimed people lost and multiplied it by the total population of Earth or some nonsense shit. Their reports are blocked behind registration, which I’m not willing to do to find out their report is bullshit. Misinformation at its finest right here.

[–] fluxion@lemmy.world 8 points 1 day ago

Give me call screening and filtering options so we can ignore the calls in the first place

[–] solrize@lemmy.world 10 points 1 day ago

WTF. What could possibly go wrong. Flip phone here I come.

[–] 01189998819991197253@infosec.pub 8 points 1 day ago (3 children)

In some countries and, (if not mistaken) states in USA, if an AI is listening to a conversation, both parties must be made aware. If they don't notify the other end, they'll be violating regulations. Privacy erosion and manipulation likelihood aside, this is a terrible idea.

[–] gamermanh@lemmy.dbzer0.com 1 points 1 day ago (1 children)

When the phone is answered the AI is the one speaking and tells the person calling that it's a bot who'll pass the info to the actual user

That's not the same as recording the call. Once the call is transferred, it is expected for the bot to stop listening, unless it state that it's part of the call (which it doesn't).

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[–] MunkysUnkEnz0@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago (3 children)

Spam protection is turned on automatically, and you’ll be notified when this happens. You can turn it off anytime in your settings:

Open Google Messages . At the top right, tap your Profile picture or Initials.

Tap Messages settings and then Spam protection. You'll only find "Spam protection" if it's available on your device. Turn Enable spam protection on or off.

I'm not seeing in my message settings. Anyone else?

They said it's rolling out in beta. Spam Protection is already in the Messages app. Scam Protection is coming soon. But to listen to telephone audio that means they want to add it into the native dialer\phone app. Google has a dialer app named "Phone" with a Spam filter feature currently.

I assume that's what is coming -- a.i. into the dialer\phone app.

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[–] can@sh.itjust.works 7 points 1 day ago (1 children)

If enabled, Scam Detection will beep at the start and during the call to notify participants the feature is on. You can turn off Scam Detection at any time, during an individual call or for all future calls.

Scammers will quickly catch on then the real trick will be to just play that beep without any of the ai stuff.

[–] catloaf@lemm.ee 7 points 1 day ago

The beep is legal compliance, because some states require notification of call recording. Same reason you hear "this call may be recorded for quality assurance purposes".

[–] Sixtyforce@sh.itjust.works 6 points 1 day ago

Deciding to install GrapheneOS is constantly validated for me! But I never want to give Google money ever again.

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