DEPENDING on your point of view, the explosion of artificial technology across all aspects of society is either an exciting advancement in human ingenuity or the beginning a Terminator-style march towards the Apocalypse.
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Perhaps it's both.
A quick Google search online will offer you John Lennon singing Paul McCartney songs released after his 1980 death, a photograph of Mahatma Gandhi taking a selfie or Donald Trump being arrested by New York police.
The avenues for creativity - and copyright infringement - are endless.
The folk at Merewether brewery Modus have taken the view that AI has limitless potential. And delicious potential, at that.
This week they launched their 7 per cent Neural Network East Coast IPA, a beer completely designed through AI technology.
The brew was a collaboration with Australian creative content agency, Absolutely Ai.
AI tools designed the beer recipe, the can packaging, the name and the tasting notes.
According to the AI computer you should be tasting a "tropical paradise in every sip of this East Coast IPA, featuring a balance of sweet malt and hoppy bitterness with notes of grapefruit, orange and passionfruit".
It's recommended for hot summer days and pairing with spicy food.
"It really is Australia's first top-to-bottom-designed AI beer where every aspect of it was generated through AI," Modus digital marketing manager Sam Evans says.
"The brewers then had to, of course, make it.
"We're not that advanced where we've got robots brewing in the back."
AI technology isn't completely new to brewing.
In 2021 two University of Adelaide computer science students created a neural network (a series of algorithms that mimics the human brain) that learnt how to make beer from 260,000 existing recipes online.
In partnership with Barossa Valley Brewing they created and released Rodney AI2PA, an IPA named in honour of Australian robotics pioneer Rodney Brooks.
Last month global beer giant AB InBev launched Beck's Autonomous - a product with a recipe and marketing campaign designed by AI.
Absolutely Ai used a similar process by programming its computer to access data from publicly-listed recipes and beer reviews online.
The computer was asked, "Can you give us the recipe for the best beer in the world?"
However, the question proved too vague.
"It talked about it a bit and said it's subjective and here's what's popular," Evans says.
"So we thought let's make an east coast IPA. [So we asked] 'what's the world's best east coast IPA'? It said, 'From our findings this is the recipe that would go ahead and generate the best east coast IPA based on reviews and feedback.'
"It really did shorten it down for us."
The AI computer gave detailed step-by-step instructions which Modus' brewers followed closely.
However, Evans says there was still room for the human element.
"An AI program can't smell a beer, so it doesn't know what pleasant aromas it's meant to generate," he says.
"It has an idea of what you're supposed to do, but it doesn't have that nuance of standing outside the mashed kettle so you can see what's happening here and where I need to put my brewer's expertise into it."
Evans says the main advantage of AI technology is it makes the recipe-development process faster.
Brewers spend years, and many beers, learning about the nuances various hops and malts have on flavour profiles.
AI technology can give instant answers to simple questions such as 'how to produce a toffee note out of this hop'?
However, despite a pleasing result with this drop, Evans says Modus has no plans to turn over its beer range to AI recipes.
"It's not to say we won't ever use it again, but it was a fun experiment for us to do this," he says.
"I can absolutely see its application down the track to more recipes. But this is just a one-off experiment for now."
Of course the burning question that needs to be answered is, how does the Neural Network East Coast IPA taste to an actual human?
Newcastle Herald photographer and craft beer aficionado, Jonathan Carroll, admits he's not usually an east coast IPA fan, but he gives the Neural Network a firm seal of approval.
"It goes down like a dream. Very easy drinking," Carroll says.
"It could get you in trouble in summer. For a 7 per cent beer, it doesn't taste like it.
"If this is the future of beer, I welcome our AI overlords."
Modus' Neural Network East Coast IPA is available for a limited time at its brewpub, located at 20 Merewether Street, Merewether, and at selected bottle shops.
