Google just spat in my face – David Bushell – Web Dev (UK)
Google just spat in my face
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Bluesky
Wednesday
20 May<br>2026
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It’s Google I/O week and this year’s theme is performative slop. Budding Googlers battle it out on stage vying for executive eyeballs. The prize? Exemption from the next culling.<br>As you might know AI isn’t my cup of tea and my AI policy explains why.
AI peddlers like Google have made one thing abundantly clear: their product will take your skills. It will take your profession. It will dehumanise you and you’ll pay for it.<br>Google’s web<br>I figured Google’s Prompt API would be the most offensive attack on an open web I’d witness this month. Nope! Google’s new microsite has sent me apoplectic.<br>Modern Web Guidance is a set of evergreen and expert-vetted skills that guide your AI coding agents across many common use cases to build modern web experiences that are accessible, performant, and secure.<br>Build with Modern Web Guidance
At first glance this is nothing more than an advertisement for the AI industrial complex. I made the mistake of engaging my brain for a closer look. Brain engagement is discouraged so I only have myself to blame for the ensuing rage.<br>Google spits in the face of professional web development.<br>Where do I even start?<br>“modern web”<br>The repeated use of “modern web” implies that current development practices are out of date. Throw away all established knowledge because Google has changed the game.<br>“evergreen”<br>The entire chat-box-driven-development craze has been a long series of “you’re prompting it wrong” arguments. Are we to understand that Google’s new magic incantations have settled the debate once and for all?<br>“expert-vetted”<br>Which experts? Google, I assume. You are no longer an expert. You are token consumer number six. Expertise are not a privilege extended to consumers.<br>“skills”<br>Forgive my ignorance but I struggle to understand how AI addicts define “skills”. From what I can understand these “skills” are text prompts? “Skills” used to refer to the trained abilities required to do a professional job. I’m no prescriptivist but this is slopaganda.<br>Deskilling<br>Google’s idea of “modern web” is a deskilling effort that should deeply offend developers to their core. It should also offend the AI apologists. Google thinks you’re too stupid to articulate your prayers coherently so just copy-paste the ten commandments. Defer to the almighty bullshitter in the cloud!<br>What do you think a fair wage is for a professional developer who has less agency than Butter Bot? They’ll say this “democratises” web development alongside all and every profession in which AI has been violently forced.<br>And what is the end goal? To deskill you so far down the ladder you’ll be forced into token servitude. To make a handful of billionaires even richer.<br>Prompt boxes are not “just a tool” they are the end of your career.<br>Implement a starter Content Security Policy (CSP) without breaking my app.
Don’t break it bro! Pinky promise?
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Bluesky
Written by human
All opinions are my own and not those of a large language model.<br>Everything I write is one hundred percent human. Because I care!
AI policy
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