On 12 May 1997, ITN met Cecilia, a new computer software which Oxford researchers hoped could bring to life the voices of Maria Callas and Ella Fitzgerald and even make them sing new songs. Music Researcher Ken Lomax proudly showed off the technology which, syllable by syllable, had sampled the voice of opera singer Maria Callas and created an impressive clone of Callas singing the aria "Queen of the Night". The visual aspects of the software left something be desired, Cecilia seemingly struggling to clone Callas' face. But jazz singer George Melly saw the problem with Cecilia not in her striking visage but in the implications of computer cloning for artists and their art in the digital age. Melly's complaints touched on the issues that have, in the decades since, become more prominent in the entertainment industry, as audio-visual creators seek to secure their jobs and their legacies in the age of artificial Intelligence (AI).

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