On the fourteenth day I went into the kitchen, and I was surprised to find that the fronds of the red weed had grown right across the hole in the wall, turning the half-light of the place into a crimson-coloured obscurity.

H. G. Wells, The War of the Worlds, Chapter 22

I recently caught the tail end of the keynote at the Google Cloud Summit in Sydney. It trailed off with a presentation about a street artist using AI to create a new piece of artwork. Along with the time-lapse video went the tagline/chant "AI can't hold a paintbrush, but it can inspire art".

Of course, this is just the latest marketing battle-cry to increase the takeup of Google's AI, but it's interesting that they are now actively trying to combat the backlash from the creative community.

This comes at the same time as they announce their new AI-mode - without links to websites. As I write this in my local environment, I wonder if I will ever release it onto the internet, given that the moment I do, I am essentially opting into Google and the like, taking possession of my words and ideas to fuel their money making leviathan. In my first book (as yet still unpublished), I talk about how search engine results past page 50 are unviewable - effectively annexing off huge portions of the internet and making the content un-findable. Is this the shape of things to come, where it no longer becomes viable for content creators to publish on the web, because there is no way to find their websites?

And the question instantly arises: How is Google planning to monetise this service?

Because of course, that is the plan...

I have used "free" Gmail for years now, and I wonder how many of my emails they have read to train their AI. If you ask, they will no doubt say, none. But really? I very much doubt it. They've been insidiously scraping content forever for cash without renumeration for the content providers that provided the content.

I can't quite put my finger on what is so abhorrent to me about all of this. Is it just the mindlessness of it all? Perhaps it's the fact that by the time people realise what Google has done, there won't be anyone left with enough intelligence to care. Certainly, I found the Googl-ite frothing at the mouth over the new AI artwork quite vexing... oh, pardon me, the artist painted it, didn't he..?

It's a mixed bag of emotions at present, as on the one hand, I am fearful of what is about to happen, but on the other, I am trying to adapt; indeed, I myself am trying to embrace the new technology to take my artwork to the next level - and not without some measure of success.