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Faced with an attempt by a new chatbot to imitate（模仿）his own songs，the musician Nick Cave delivered a strong response: it was "an absolutely horrible attempt". He understood that AI was in its babyhood, but could only conclude that the true horror might be that "it will forever be in its babyhood". While a robot might one day be able to create a song, he wrote, it would never grow beyond "a kind of burlesque（滑稽的模仿）"，because robots-being composed of data-are unable to suffer, while songs arise out of suffering.

Fans of Cave and his band will agree that his music is inimitable, but that doesn't mean they would necessarily be able to tell the difference. A few days before Cave's remarks, experts were asked to distinguish between four genuine artworks and their AI imitations. Their conclusions were wrong five times out of 12, and they were only unitedly right in one of the four picture comparisons.

These are party games, but they point to an unfolding challenge that must be managed as a matter of urgency because, like it or not, AI art is upon us. The arrival of the human-impersonating ChatGPT might have increased general awareness, but artists across a wide range of disciplines are already exploring its potential, with the dancer Wayne McGregor and London's Young Vic Theatre among those who have created AI-based works.

A strongly-worded report from Communications and Digital Committee (CDC) issued a wake-up call to the government, urging it to raise its game in educating future generations of tech-savvy professionals, and tackling key regulatory challenges. These included reviewing reforms to intellectual property law, strengthening the rights of performers and artists, and taking action to support the creative sector in adapting to the disturbances caused by swift and stormy technological change.

While developing AI is important, it should not be pursued at all costs, the CDC stressed. It deplored the failure of the Department for Digital, Culture, and Media to offer a defence against proposed changes to intellectual property law that would give copyright exemption（版权豁免）to any work，anywhere in the world，involving AI text and data mining.

The challenges of AI are both philosophical, as Cave suggested, and practical. They will unfold over the short and long term. State-of-the-art creative industries have a key role to play in shaping and exploring the philosophical ones, but they must have the practical help they require to survive and be successful. They need it now.