Mick Clifford: How I almost fell for a possible AI scam 

AI is being increasingly used to scam creative folk, including writers and musicians, because their work is digitally available and can be easily harvested. Mick Clifford almost became a victim of it

Online scams are as old as online, but AI has opened up new possibilities, says Mick Clifford. 

The email provided a little boost to my ego. It was from a person identifying themselves as Felix, who was a moderator for an online book club. They wanted to talk about my book, Who Killed Una Lynskey?.

The book was published in 2024 and in the nature of the short shelf life of books these days I had assumed it was practically forgotten about. But no, here was this person writing from the USA, inviting me to discuss the book with its members. And get this. It has a total worldwide membership of 120,000. Look at me now, ma. The world has finally recognised my genius.