People are really bad at spotting AI-generated deepfake voices

People can no longer reliably tell AI and human voices apart, except in examples of conversational-style speech or with familiar voices, such as those of friends or family.

Reproducing human voices using artificial intelligence has long been a research goal, for example to help people who lose the ability to speak, but until recently, people have mostly been able to recognise an AI-generated voice. In 2023, researchers found that English and Mandarin speakers could differentiate between real and deepfake voices about 70 per cent of the time.