AI threatens to become society’s swan song

Shutting the stable door after the nag has bolted is an expression with surprising relevance. I’m referring to artificial intelligence, or AI, and the panic in which musicians, songwriters and authors such as , Paul McCartney, and Captain Corelli’s Mandolin writer Louis de Bernières are immersed.

They are protesting against government plans to let AI firms use copyright-protected work free of charge. As an author, I am on their side. And this newspaper joined others yesterday in calling for the Government to ensure tech firms pay for the work that fuels AI. The damage is already obvious.

We have been living with and using AI technology for years. We just didn’t know it.

Generative AI, such as ChatGPT, can fetch up an entire book that reads as though it were written by a human. It can create new art from a sequence of prompts, and deliver original songs from basic trigger words or concepts.

My son Henry and I had a go at it, using an AI music generator app on his phone.

“Give me a musical style,” he said. “Adult-oriented rock,” I said. “Subject?” “A squirrel.” Within seconds up popped a groovy number entitled Squirrel Whirl with an intro, verse, chorus and bridge, a full vocal and rhyming lyrics. We tried another: in The Fresh Prince Of Bel Air hip-hop mode, the subject “facelifts”. Back it came in moments, with a funky bass line, neat riff and tongue-in-cheek message. Both were good. But it’s worth remembering the human element remains essential for copyright/ownership and artistic integrity.

I was offered a contract to teach generative AI engines to write better. “You might as well, they are using your work anyway,” I was told. Indeed, searchable databases of hundreds of thousands of books, secretly pirated by tech giants already exist, to train their systems to mimic human composition. Reader, I declined.

But this genie’s not going back in the bottle. All who “create” for a living might as well lock up and go home now. Or should we?

This is only logical progress. Imagine how fine artists felt when along came photography in the 1820s. Photography dominates today, yet artists still paint.

AI is embedded and on course to become the medium by which most humans produce digital content. The technology has huge potential, provided we can control it. But can we?

The point at which AI transitions from being a tool used by us to becoming an autonomous entity making decisions regardless of us, is not far away. The ethical and societal implications are far more terrifying than the faking of a few songs or the ripping off of our latest book.

● Vanessa Feltz is away

Cashback plan is fine by me

The proposed crackdown on cowboy parking firms is long overdue. Engaged to speak at a London event staged at a five-star hotel, I was instructed by reception to park on the forecourt and assured that my space had been approved.

Days later, a “fine” for £100 dropped through my letter box. The hotel declined responsibility. So I paid it and forgot about it. I am now spitting blood, having discovered that private firms have no authority to issue fines. So why does the government allow them access to its DVLA database, enabling them to trace and extort unwitting offenders and drive us aggressively into submission?

Local government minister Baroness Taylor promises a new consultation later this year. Will she also initiate a scheme via which we can claim our money back?

Sung, gifted and Flack

A precocious, classically-trained pianist who arranged her own songs and a powerhouse of almost operatic excellence and sublime vocal control, Roberta Flack recorded her debut album First Take for Ahmet Ertegun’s Atlantic Records in just 10 hours.

At her peak she was the only artist ever to win the Grammy for song of the year twice in a row, for The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face and Killing Me Softly With His Song. “I didn’t try to be a soul singer, a jazz singer, a blues singer,” said the star who has died aged 88. “My music is my expression of what I feel and believe in a moment.”

They used to scorn her for being “too white”, yet her recordings were colourless. Her 2012 album Let It Be Roberta, featured Flack’s exquisite interpretations of Beatles hits. Even Yoko Ono, who lived across the hall from her in New York’s Dakota building, conceded its brilliance. Do yourself a favour and give her Here, There And Everywhere a listen. That’s where she is.

Senior moment fuelling fears for motorist and for all of us

I was purchasing petrol when a lady came in to pay for a bunch of flowers. “Any fuel today?” asked the till operative. “No,” she said.

“You’ve just put £28 worth of petrol in your blue Toyota at pump number six,” he reminded her. “Did I?” she hesitated, “I can’t remember doing that.” He and his colleague stared at me with “eek” expressions. The lady paid and drove away. The incident has since kept me awake. Was she having a senior moment, or might this have been an indication of something more serious? Should we have stopped her from leaving? How would we have done that? Did we have the civil right to do so? She paid up, after all. She didn’t look like a bilker. Did she get home? Could she be staring down the dementia barrel but can’t face her GP? I can’t stop thinking about her. It has implications for us all.

I’m not in love with Gouldman

As an enthusiastic fan of Radio 2’s Piano Room sessions with the concert orchestra, broadcast on Vernon Kay’s morning show and available to watch on iPlayer, I salivated over a pending performance by 10CC. The band once billed as The Beatles of the 1970s have enchanted me since I was at school.

But the dreamy Eric Stewart, one of rock’s great unsung heroes whose voice delivered their timeless signature I’m Not In Love, quit the line-up in 1995. Its co-writer Graham Gouldman sang it. Sorry to say.

I wish I hadn’t watched it now. Life’s precious moments are best left imagined than revisited.

■The online outpouring in support of Gino d’Acampo has been confounding. You might expect women to unite against the celebrity chef accused of misconduct and sexually abusive behaviour, but the opposite appears to be the case. Much of the invective levelled at his accusers and critics is authored by females. Is the sisterhood deceased?

■Cosmetics giant Sephora is selling anti-aging products to 10-year-olds. The rise of so-called tween “skinfluencers” has prompted a surge in sales to children, who spent $2.4 billion on facial skincare in 2023, an annual rise of 27.2 per cent. Dermatologists are claiming the products could seriously damage young skin. Now the state of California has become the first to attempt to ban their sale to under-18s. All power to them. A bar of Pears and a running tap were as cosmetic as it got it my day.