IT’S MY THURSDAY ESSAY FOR VIP SUBSCRIBERS: Our Love/Meh Relationship With AI.

“People wanted more than just text,” former CEO Eric Schmidt later said of the company’s moonshot effort to design, build, and launch the first image search engine as quickly as humanly possible. “Google Image Search was born” on July 12, 2001, Schmidt later recalled.

Google Image Search immediately became one of the company’s most-loved and most-used tools, and constant refinements over the last 25 years helped keep it that way. I moved on from Google years ago — mostly because I despise the company’s business practices — but when the copycats fail, I find myself back on GIS.

Then this week — on Image Search’s 25th birthday — Google just had to go and ruin it.

Say it with me now: “By adding AI nobody asked for.”

But this isn’t really about Google, Image Search, or even AI. It’s about tools.

Much more at the link.