from around the world, once again, a big hello and a warm welcome to the show. you know, fraud and scams, they're nothing new. but with each technological change, the fraudsters, they are quick to pounce on new possibilities. we've all had emails, phone calls and text messages trying to scam us out of cash by people pretending to be someone we know or with a time limited offer that's just too good to miss. or maybe they're pretending to be a tax official or a utility which asks us to transfer money urgently to them. well, now, as artificial intelligence promises to speed up the world of business, the fraudsters, they're already taking advantage of these new possibilities. in april, jennifer distefano, a mum in arizona in the united states, received a phone call from an unknown number. she thought it might be her doctor. instead, she heard the voice of a 15—year—old daughter, briana. she told the rest of the story to the united states senate. it was brianna sobbing and crying, saying, "mom." at first i thought nothing of it and casually asked her what happened. brianna continued with, "mom, i messed up" crying and sobbing continually, not thinking twice, i asked her again, "0k, what happened?" suddenly, a man's voice barked at her, "lay down, put your head back." at that moment, i started to panic. my concern escalated as i demanded to know what was going on, but nothing could have prepared me for her response that she gave me. "mum, these bad men have me. help me, help me. help me!" she begged and pleaded as a phone was taken from her. a threatening and vulgar man took the call over. "listen here i have your daughter. you call anybody, you call the police. i'm going to pop her stomach so full of drugs. i'm going to have my way with her. i'm going to drop her in mexico and you'll never see your daughter again. they required me to get in a van with a bag over my head with $50,000 in cash to be transported to my daughter. if i didn't have all the money, then we were both going to be dead. i was shocked at that point in time. the second mum came back to me and she had located my husband who had found bree resting safely in bed. i called the police to pursue the matter and unfortunately i was met with it was a prank call that it happens often and that there's nothing that can be done. so i turn to the community and the responses were overwhelming. friends and neighbours came out of the woodwork with their stories, kidnapping, phone calls coming from their children's phones, bags of money being driven halfway to mexico. even voices of young children nowhere to be found on social media who do not have phones. the stories kept pouring in. jennifer destefano�*s story is a dramatic example of the new possibilities ai is giving criminals to scam us. in the united states alone, there was a 30% jump in fraud last year to almost $9 billion. 2.6 billion of that was to so—called imposter scams fraudsters pretending to be people or businesses and successfully getting billions for their dirty work. but we're also spending a lot to tackle the threat. $6.5 billion was spent on detecting ai fraud last year. that's a global estimate by the research company juniper, who predict that that will rise to $10 billion a year by 2027. one of those leading the charge is the massive cybersecurity company checkpoint. and my first guest is its global chief information security officer. pete nicoletti, a real pleasure having you on the show. pete, let's start with this, because fraud is obviously nothing new, but i'm just wondering, pete, how big of a game—changer is al when it comes to fraud? well, it's lowering the bar for scammers and both with the ability to use al to automatically create convincing targeted phishing emails and scams, as well as creating zero day malware code that can be the vector for ransomware. it's creating a lot of college—level english—speaking hackers in countries thatjust don't speak english. and we just heard jennifer destefano�*s story about a deep fake phone call from her daughter. how easy is it, pete? well, it can take as little as 10 minutes to clone a voice from social media posted videos. the tools are free, they're easy to use, and hackers are even using their own tools that are on the dark web that don't have the watermarking or the guardrails that are trying to prevent this kind of misuse. and i know my producer asked you to look at my social media to see what you could do. and i think you've got an audio clip and a video clip. let's just start with what you came up with, the audio clip. hi, honey. i'm here in paris and my wallet and phone were stolen and i'm calling from a borrowed phone. i need to have some money sent to me immediately. that's me! i'm going to send you my french colleague's paypal information. rachel, thank you very much. i love you and i'll call you later. wow. i mean, that's pretty scary... that's pretty scary stuff. i mean, that was my voice. we live in a post—real society, aaron. yes, absolutely, it's your voice. and if you call your mother with that voice, it will fool your mother. wow. and just to be clear, pete, that was just from the stuff available that i had put out or shared on social media. so do people need to change what they actually put out on social media? are we likely to stop sharing things if this opens us all up for scams? well, i think that cat is out of the bag. what we need to think about is what we share publicly. the risk to you getting scammed or your house broken into increases with posts when you say you're on vacation and scammers know your dog's name and your grandmother's name — don't overshare. but the other countermeasure is have a safe word that only you and your family know or you and your business colleagues use to validate transactions and potential threats to your family. and, pete, i mean, that was scary enough just listening to the audio, but you've also put a fake video of me together. what did you come up with? morocco is facing devastating consequences of the recent earthquake. support their recovery now by donating. we actually use chatgpt and other artificial intelligence tools to take your voice clone and then create a video for the moroccan earthquake where we're asking for money and you're calling into a number that the scammers have. so it's actually trivial. it took us about ten or 15 minutes to do that. it sort of begs the question, what do people do about this? well, right now, the artificial intelligence tools can only take a frontal face picture and animate it. so if you think you're talking to an artificial intelligence person, ask them to turn around and show them their bald spot, the back of the head, because they're not scanning the back of their heads right now. wow, 0k, good tip. and it's notjust phone calls because i'm wondering, pete, texts, emails and letters, can can they be just as powerful? yes, and it's actually easier to create with scripting, chatgpt. so thousands of emails can be created and sent out for pennies and only a few people have to click on those and fall for those kind of scams for it to be profitable for the scammers. and pete, we heard a mum who received a fake kidnap call from her daughter, and she said that the police said to her that no law had been broken because the scammers didn't actually get any money. but it makes you wonder, does there need to be a change in the law to make this kind of impersonation illegal? yes, we do. here in the us, we've seen at least six scams where the hackers have made off with money from those type of kidnapping scams. and we've also seen companies scammed for money. we recently saw the mgm hack that was a call into the help desk where it was potentially with a voice clone. absolutely. also, again, notjust families or individuals. businesses are being targeted, fraudsters pretending well, pretending to be colleagues or other companies scamming money. absolutely. we're seeing it multiple times and the scams are increasing. we're seeing calls into the help desk where people are impersonating employees and we're seeing money transfers from people that are calling into their cfo to have money transferred. so absolutely, the scammers are winning in this case. and, pete, a lot of the times when we talk about al, certainly when i've talked about al on my show, it's always, you know, the worry about it's coming for yourjob. but with this in some sort of strange way, this kind of feels like ai creating jobs either for the fraudsters using ai orfor the people, the experts that we now need to tackle these scams. absolutely. it is creating more scammers on the the offence and here at checkpoint we are hiring more people for defence. you have to bring al to an ai fight or you will be a statistic. and, pete, can companies like yours, can you keep up with all of this or do you need to sort of keep tweaking things to get one step ahead? well, we are staying one step ahead, and that's what checkpoint is all about with our prevention mantra. but there's new scams every day. there's new zero days every day. so we have to be extremely reactive and things like our threat cloud protect our customers across the world in two to three seconds from new scams every day. and, pete, let me end on this, because ai and, pete, let me end on this, because ai certainly is storming the headlines of late, but this is where we are now. i mean, i can't even think of where is it going to be in five years�* time? well, it's crazy because this is the fastest evolving technology that the human race has ever evolved, you know, dealt with and is evolving with. so, you know, just since november, we have over 100 million users with chatgpt. and i'm one of the pessimistic ones. i think the singularity of when ai actually gains a consciousness is coming sooner than we think it is. it may be an arnold schwarzenegger future for us poor humans. wow. well, on that scary point, pete nicoletti of checkpoint, a real pleasure having you on the show. thanks for everything. and we'll talk to you soon. you're very welcome. and i hope some of my ideas are going to keep our viewers safe. so what can consumers do to protect themselves in the face of this new wave of fraudulent threat? well, my next guest, she's been on the show before. she's the director of consumer protection at the consumer federation of america. erin whitty, welcome back to the show. always a pleasure having you with us. and erin, let me start on this — i want to know how common is this in terms of the complaint coming in to you? because i'm also wondering just how big are these new ai scams? so this is actually becoming very common. last year, the us federal trade commission reported that impostor scams were the top type of fraud that was reported to the ftc. so we know that this method of impersonating somebody else, using someone else�*s likeness, whether it's a family member, a friend, a government agency, is extremely effective. and we also can safely assume that something that's effective, that takes money away from people quickly, if ai can be used to speed up that process, i think it's safe to assume that scammers will continue to rely on this and that this type of scam is only going to grow. also, this is happening all over the world, notjust in the us. the uk recently released a report that was based on a survey to consumers ages 18 to sa, and 16% of them reported that they had been targeted by an ai generated scam. a few months ago, chinese authorities arrested an individual who was able to scam someone out of $600,000 in one instance. wow, wow. so on that point, what's your advice, erin, and what's the advice to consumers? so there's a few things that consumers can do. the number one thing that consumers can do is educate themselves, learn more about this and keep it top of mind. and not only educate yourself, find out more about it, but tell your friends, tell your family. this is probably a too common topic within my own family. they're tired of hearing me talk about scams. another thing to remember is that scammers are the most effective when they can create a sense of urgency. so when someone has you on the phone, if they've got you on a video call and they're saying it purports to be a family member, it can be really scary and it is often very, very urgent. so that is the time when it's the most critical to exercise scepticism, try to verify, is this the person that they say they are? if it's your family member, maybe you can send them a text and say, "is this really you? where are you right now?" you can try to call 911 on a different call. ask someone who's in the room with you. really try to exercise scepticism when you feel that really crazy sense of urgency. and erin, i'vejust experienced a deep fake of myself. i mean, it's scary stuff and it was just taken off social media, so i'm just wondering, do you think people need to rethink what they share on social media? yeah, i think it is important, really important to exercise a lot of caution when you're sharing something that you've seen, especially because it can be used in ways that are much bigger than just an individual. it could be used to create an entire marketplace disruption when someone could create a video of a natural disaster. so as people are resharing these videos, something seems really unlikely or like a huge shock, really try to exercise scepticism, try to verify it with a third party or a different source before you immediately share it with someone else. and, erin, are the regulations keeping up or going fast enough? or is ijust too too advanced already? i think it's impossible to expect that any government regulator is going to be able to act as quickly as we've seen ai technology moving. but we don't have to create an entirely new framework of law to address this conduct. a lot of times the way that al is being used and what's the most problematic is to commit conduct that's already illegal — discrimination, fraud, anti—competitive conduct, so regulators can actually use their existing tools to combat all of this illegal conduct with tools that they already have. the us president biden actually issued an ai blueprint bill of rights last yearfor companies to use as guidance when they're developing ai technology in a way that will protect the american public for things like data privacy, algorithms that are being used in discrimination and things like that. and, erin, next yearwe have... well, we have elections where you are in the us, here in the uk, i mean india, nigeria, spain, just to name a few. how worried should we be? very worried. i think we've already seen deepfakes being used in the context of elections to spread false videos, false information. consumers should be very, very careful about this and very aware that it's going to increase significantly to try to promote a certain party, a certain candidate, to try to undermine parties or candidates. consumers should be on very high alert when they're seeing videos being used in political ads or campaigns. and, erin, as the consumer federation, what is it that you would like to see being done about all of this? there's a few different things that we'd like to see. we talked before about the importance of consumer education, and i think that is absolutely crucial. but education doesn't onlyjust happen for consumers. it should also be happening for businesses to educate their employees about the use of ai scams and fraud. ai can be used to impersonate your boss, your co—worker, someone outside your company telling you that you need to do something quite quickly, so education should be used by businesses, promoted by organisations to make sure that people are fully aware of the way that this can be used to scam people at all different levels. we should also be emphasising education for smaller, local outlets like consumer affairs organisations, police departments. these are often the companies... agencies that hear directly from consumers about these problems, so the more that we can spread the word about effective tools to combat it, ways to get people's money back, the better off we'll all be. and, erin, let me end on this sort of summing it up. how concerning is all of this or is there a lot more fear of technology than actual threat? i think this is very concerning. you know, ai could be used in ways to benefit people. it could be used responsibly and in ways that adhere to law. but unfortunately, it's not always what we're seeing. and so the alarm that's being created by the proliferation of deepfakes, discriminatory decision making algorithms and things like that is very real. erin, does there need to be a law change here? because we've heard from one mother who received a fake kidnap call from her daughter. talked to the police, the police said they can't do anything about it, no money was actually handed over, but itjust feels wrong in some ways. it does feel wrong. and i think one of the biggest problems with frauds and scams, notjust in al, but generally, is that it can be really difficult for someone to get their money back because that is an extremely effective tool that's used by scammers, right? they take someone�*s money away from them and they're gone. well, on that point, erin witte, great to see you again. thanks for your time and we'll talk to you again soon. thank you for having me. moving now from the threat of ai to the threat of the climate crisis. you know, in the last few weeks, the battle against manmade global warming was taken on further by the united nations at the un climate ambition summit. a handful of businesses, they submitted their green transition plans, and among them, the big boss of one of the world's largest energy companies, spain's iberdrola. ignacio galan, a real pleasure having you on the show. and, ignacio, let me start with this. i mean, you'vejust returned from the united nations climate ambition summit and the leader of the un, antonio guterres, he warned of, and i quote, "the gates of hell". i'm wondering, ignacio, is the world doing enough to hit the zero carbon targets? the answer is...let�*s be positive and negative. the answer, a straightforward answer is no. the positive answer is but we are moving. 20 years ago, most people deny the problem exist. now the problem is that there are people which are saying, recognise the problem exists, but they are asking for more time to make that happen. and my point is, like general secretary of the united nation is the time is over. we need to do now. and, ignacio, your company has invested more than $100 billion into green energy, quite a sum. but the critics say that the storage just isn't there yet. i mean, we saw with the war in ukraine that we just weren't ready for renewables to replace fossil fuels. but, ignacio, given that very large investment you've made, how is that possible? well, in the case of iberdrola, that is not true. so i think when we make our initial strategic plan, 22 years back when ijoined the company, apart from changing the colour from blue to green and to invest and to try to double the company in five years, we multiply the company by eight times, we have invested 150 billion, but we had already transformed all or most our hydroelectric power plant, existing power plant in spain. so now we have already a storage capacity in spain and portugalfor more than 100 million kilowatt hours, which is already enough capacity for powering two or three million electric vehicles. we are investing in batteries. i think in britain, we are in wylie, the largest onshore wind farm in britain is already has been built a battery for storing electricity. this wind farm, we are already have the battery standards or something else, which are in a large scale batteries as well. we are putting batteries in ireland. batteries in the state. i think we are putting batteries in australia. but in terms of large storage, i think in the iberian peninsula, we are investing a lot of money in this moment, in this moment in the last 20 years in transforming our existing hydroelectric power plant in already in reversible using us as a motor and pump or using us generator. and, ignacio, recently the uk had an offshore wind power auction, but no bidders came forward. i mean, you own scottishpower. i'm just wondering what happened to that auction, what went wrong? i think the first thing the uk has already a unique opportunity, it's a country with deep waters, with very, very convenient, i think 30, 50 metres deep, which i think that is very good. i think the distance from the offshore wind farm to the shore is reasonable, it's not like the united states, which are 100 kilometres or something else. this is more convenient. i think that is the reason why britain has been... the country has already built more offshore than any other countries. so what have they been making? they have been making auction based on the previous price of the previous auction, and i think that was fine. i think they've been benefiting of the improvement of the technology or the improvement of the efficiency or the improvement of the learning curve. so they think change. still is costing $200 per tonne is $1,000 per ton. the copper is not any longer. the price it was is multiplied by two or by three. they are not really enough semiconductors and the price of semiconductors increased tremendously. the labour costs increased because of the inflation in a huge manner and the rate of interest has already moved from almost nothing a 1% to 5% or even more. and the conditions with their banks are already fixing for providing the financing is more costly. and all those ones makes than the price cannot be any longer diminishing that they were already doing as the last few years. ignacio, let me end on this — china. it leads the world in combined onshore and offshore wind power. how how do other countries compare and what do they need to do in orderjust to compete with china? well, i think... i think let's talk our sector. the first thing i can tell you is that we have not much dependence on china, with the exception of with the exception of the panels. so i think we need to ready a huge investment and we need already a supply chain. so supply chains, in the case of europe, we have a good supply chains for hydroelectric, we have a good supply chains for wind. the fact i think the last recent speech of the state of the union of the ursula von leyden was already precisely commenting on wind technologies. europe has been leading these technologies. we have very good companies making that one. but unfortunately in solar we have not made much. and i think the chinese has already got almost 90% or 95% of the global market. ignacio galan, the big boss of iberdrola, thanks for your time and we'll talk to you soon. thank you very much for your always intelligent question. thank you. well, that's it for this week's show. i hope you enjoyed it. don't forget, you can keep up with the latest on our global economy on the bbc website or the smartphone app. of course, you can also follow me on x. x me, i'll x you back. you can get me @bbcaaron. thanks for watching. i'll see you soon, bye bye. hello. it's going to stay quite warm for the foreseeable future. the weather, though, a bit of a mixed bag. we had plenty of damp weather on saturday and we're also forecasting rain at least for a time on sunday. but bright weather, i think, for the majority of us. now, here's the satellite picture, a conveyor belt of clouds stretching from the southwest spreading across the uk. that's the weather front. to the south of it, we've got that warm and quite humid airstreaming in. that means a lot of mist and murk around some southwestern and western coasts through the early hours. and you can see where the rain is around parts of wales, into north western england and across parts of northern england too. but a lot of dry weather as well, though, quite overcast. temperatures, 7:00 in the morning, 17 celsius in the south, about 15 celsius there in newcastle, so a really mild start to the day. now here's the forecast for the morning, you can see where it's raining from wales through northern england. a lot of sunshine for scotland and northern ireland. a beautiful morning and afternoon with highs possibly even up to 20 celsius around the scottish borders and also newcastle, 23—24 celsius across east anglia and the south east. so temperatures are going to be more like august, really. now into monday, the weather front still here. it's trailing way out into the atlantic. it keeps spreading over us. so, again, a chance of some rain, i think in the form of quite heavy showers, even a crack of thunder is possible. there'll be a few showers around western parts of scotland, but i think a little bit fresher here with these atlantic winds, 15 celsius in glasgow, still 20—23, maybe 2a celsius in london and the southeast. now, here's tuesday's weather map, and you can see quite a few isobars there. that means a fair old breeze blowing off the atlantic. it's going to be more or less a westerly. but high pressure is fairly close by, that that high pressure will be building across the uk. so here's tuesday, then a few showers across many western and northern areas. i think it'll feel a little bit fresher around these western coasts, 16—17 celsius. we may nudge to about 20 celsius or so in london, but i think it's the teens for most of us on tuesday. and here's a snapshot of the week, and you can see that the best of the weather across the south of the country. but overall, actually, not too bad with a few showers here and there. live from washington. this is bbc news. all eyes on capitol hill as the senate works towards a vote on a temporary funding bill that would avoid a government shutdown. 100,000 people have fled nagorno karabakh — meaning the entire ethnic armenian population of the disputed region has left. and in pakistan, an investigation has begun into twin deadly blasts. hello, i'm sumi somaskonda. at this hour in washington, the senate is working to avoid a government shutdown. the house passed a stopgap spending measure to keep the government open for an additional 45 days, while they work to pass long—term funding. these are live pictures of the capital. we understand senators have come together to work on patting that bill and the next step would be to pass the bill onto the president �*s desk for signing. let's take a listen to what house be kevin mccarthy had to say.