Baidu can clone your voice after hearing just a minute of audio

Baidu app on smartphone screen

Baidu is building on its Deep Voice engine

Anthony Kwan/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Chinese search giant Baidu says it can create a copy of someone’s voice using neural networks – and all that’s needed to work from is less than a minute’s worth of audio of the person talking.

Baidu researchers say the technology could create digital duplicate voices for people who have lost the ability to talk. It could also be used to personalise digital assistants, video game characters or automatic speech translation services.

“A mum could easily configure an audio-book reader with her own voice …