’Tis the season for healthcare phone scams.

According to new data released by Hiya, a company that tracks phone fraud and spam, calls offering phony health plans and fraudulent Medicare support skyrocketed between October and November this year, coinciding with the start of the marketplace open-enrollment period that runs from Nov. 1 through Jan. 16.

Whether the automated message purports to be from Dale at Elite Medicare Options or Ashley from the Health Enrollment Center (both real examples that Hiya has documented), the fraud-protection platform found that most scammers will try to get their target to interact with a button- or voice-activated menu.

The menu might be disguised as a survey of Medicare coverage or an option to opt out of receiving future calls, according to Hiya, but either way, the person who responds to the automated call could be in trouble.

“A ‘yes’ answer to the robocall will likely connect the recipient with a live agent who will try to get the victim to reveal personal information, such as a Medicare number,” according to a Hiya blog post. “A ‘no’ or ‘remove me from the list’ answer lets the scammer know it’s a valid phone number, which could lead to future scam calls.”

Keep reading here.—KG

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One of the biggest names in financial risk assessment has apparently deemed the tech behind ChatGPT safe enough for its own tools.

Moody’s Analytics is rolling out an AI-based chatbot that will help banks, insurers, and other clients more readily size up financial risks around business decisions. The agency built its new research assistant around Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI service, which lets businesses build their own language models for specialized purposes.

Tapping a tech prone to so-called “hallucinations” can be a tricky business in an industry that relies on timely and precise information. But there’s also an undeniable appeal in a system that can quickly parse reams of data, according to Cristina Pieretti, general manager of digital insights for Moody’s Analytics.

“We think the [commercial] potential is very big based on the reactions we’re seeing from customers,” Pieretti said.

Keep reading here.—PK

One of the world’s first big efforts to regulate AI is nearing legislative reality.

After a marathon negotiation session, European Union lawmakers have agreed on a provisional deal to advance the sweeping AI Act. The landmark law is set to add new guardrails around everything from facial recognition to large language models, and could serve as a blueprint for other countries looking to curb AI’s riskier tendencies.

Negotiators for the EU Parliament, EU executives, and leaders of its 27 member states came to the agreement after more than 30 hours of discussion, according to EU Commissioner Thierry Breton. Legislators will next hash out the bill’s final wording before it is passed by the Parliament and the Council of country leaders, a vote that one Parliament member told the Associated Press is more of a formality now that the deal has been reached.

“Europe has positioned itself as a pioneer, understanding the importance of its role as a global standard setter,” Breton said in a press conference. “This is, I believe, a historic day.”

Rules all the rage: The rise of generative AI has spurred governments all over the world to look at how best to control against the tech’s worst downsides, which can range from job replacement to biased hiring systems to humanity’s doom, depending on whom you ask.

Keep reading here.—PK