Several wealthy Italian businessmen received a surprising phone call earlier this year. The speaker, who sounded just like Defence Minister Guido Crosetto, had a special request: Please send money to help us free kidnapped Italian journalists in the Middle East.

But it was not Crosetto at the end of the line. He only learned about the calls when several of the targeted businessmen contacted him about them. It eventually transpired that fraudsters had used artificial intelligence (AI) to fake Crosetto’s voice.

Advances in AI technology mean it is now possible to generate ultra-realistic voice-overs and sound bytes. Indeed, new research has found that AI-generated voices are now indistinguishable from real human voices. In this explainer, we unpack what the implications of this could be.

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