UF Audio Deepfakes Study Could Ultimately Help Hearing-Impaired Detect Fraud

When University of Florida doctoral student Magdalena Pasternak realized the voice urging her to take a phone survey was not human, she not only hung up but was left with nagging questions, leading her to launch a research project.

“The caller requested a moment of my time but then abruptly decided to send me an email,” she recalled. “It was at that moment I realized I was not speaking to a person, but an artificial voice intentionally designed to obscure its synthetic nature.” 

So inspired, Pasternak, a student in the Department of Computer and Information Science and Engineering (CISE) and a researcher in the Florida Institute for Cybersecurity Research (FICS), led a study with other UF researchers examining how audio deepfakes threaten hearing-impaired people who rely on cochlear implants (CIs).

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