AI technology is fuelling an explosion in voice cloning scams, experts have warned. Fraudsters can now mimic a victim's voice using just a three second snippet of audio, often stolen from social media profiles. It is then used to phone a friend or family member convincing them they are in trouble and urgently need money. One in four Britons say they or someone they know has been targeted by the scam, according to cybersecurity specialists McAfee. It is so believable the majority of those affected admitted they have lost money as a result, with the cost for around a third of victims over £1,000.

This month, a local TV-news station in Arizona ran an unsettling report: A mother named Jennifer DeStefano says that she picked up the phone to the sound of her 15-year-old crying out for her, and was asked to pay a $1 million ransom for her daughter's return. In reality, the teen had not been kidnapped, and was safe; DeStefano believes someone used AI to create a replica of her daughter's voice to deploy against her family. "It was completely her voice," she said in one interview. It was the way she would have cried." DeStefano's story has since been picked up by other outlets, while similar stories of AI voice scams have surfaced on TikTok and been reported by The Washington Post.