Kate Bush reflects on dangers of AI in annual Christmas message

British singer-songwriter Kate Bush has posted her annual Christmas message to her website, in which the artist shares her thoughts on war, the growing use of artificial intelligence in the world today, as well as Monet paintings.

In her lengthy message (see below), she thanks fans for the support for her animated short film, Little Shrew, which she wrote and directed in aid of War Child.  

“Little Shrew will be getting a bowl of especially delicious earthworms this Christmas morning,” she said.

“It’s been another year of exceptionally dark news. It just keeps getting worse, doesn’t it?” she wrote.  

“It’s hard not to focus on the worry we all feel about these conflicts and the massive changes that are happening around us, but I’d like to try to find something positive to say for this Christmas message.” 

Bush shared that Christmas Eve was one of her favourite days of the year and recalled seeing a new exhibition on Monet’s paintings and relating the French artist’s perception of industrialisation to modern anxieties around AI. 

“Is that us? Standing in awe at the dawn of AI, the symbol of modernity, as smog was for Monet at that time in the newly industrial London? Do we only see the twinkling light of the new invention, which so often catches the eye of our imagination… and what are those vague, dark sardonic shapes we can see in the background, behind the theatrical gauze?” she wrote. 

Earlier this month, Bush joined a campaign speaking out against AI using artists’ work without permission. 

She joined the likes of Paul McCartney, ABBA’s Björn Ulvaeus and Radiohead’s Thom Yorke, who all signed the petition back in October – alongside 11,500 others including Kevin Bacon, Julianne Moore, Kazuo Ishiguro and Robert Smith. 

The artists are speaking out against having their copyrighted materials used to train generative AI technology – which represents a threat to the livelihoods of creatives. 

Here is Bush’s Christmas message, published on her website:

It’s been really exciting to see the wonderfully positive feedback to the Little Shrew animation. Thank you so much to all of you who made a donation to War Child. They have been absolutely delighted with the response. 

Little Shrew will be getting a bowl of especially delicious earthworms this Christmas morning. 

It’s been another year of exceptionally dark news. It just keeps getting worse, doesn’t it? 

The wars keep raging. We helplessly stand and watch as those poor people are caught up in the horrors of it all and of course there are the children… 

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It’s hard not to focus on the worry we all feel about these conflicts and the massive changes that are happening around us, but I’d like to try to find something positive to say for this Christmas message: 

Happy Christmas Eve! My favourite day of the year. When I was a child, it used to have a special feeling. It even had a sort of Christmas Eve smell… a mixture of smoking coal fires and damp leaves, all bundled up in a drizzly English frozen fog. If I really work on it, I can still summon it up on the day. I’m working on it now… 

I went to see the Monet exhibition. Twenty one paintings in two rooms — all featuring the Thames in the smog. They were incredibly atmospheric. The fact that they were all of the same environment made you feel like you were there yourself, wrapped up in a mysterious smog of muddy sulphurous yellows, sun-starved pinks, car-sick greens. 

You could only make out vague, blurred shapes through the etherial, swirling veils…a majestic bridge here, a wispy boat there… these paintings were completely mesmerising. They transported you to London at the turn of the last century. 

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Monet thought that the smog was beautiful and that London would’ve looked utterly uninteresting without it. For him it was the smog that created the magic of the place. 

I imagined him ready at first light, stood at his easel spluttering and coughing as he peered through the polluted air, with no choice but to gasp at its beauty. 

It made me smile to read that although he sketched them while he was in London, he took them home and finished them off in France. Ha ha! So all is not as it seems — that sun-starved pink was actually lavish Giverny pink. 

Is that us? Standing in awe at the dawn of AI, the symbol of modernity, as smog was for Monet at that time in the newly industrial London? Do we only see the twinkling light of the new invention, which so often catches the eye of our imagination… and what are those vague, dark sardonic shapes we can see in the background, behind the theatrical gauze? 

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It’s hard to make them out, but could they be our human pods, like those from the Matrix, being readied for us by eager, playful digits? Or maybe they are freshly painted bridges – robust, and lovingly built to carry us all into a much longed-for new age of healthy thinking? 

All will be revealed when the smog begins to clear. 

Merry Christmas everyone. I hope it’s a really joyful one for you all. 

Happy new year.  Kate

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