Taste Came First: Build It, Then Use AI

The author argues that people calling for “AI taste” often lacked taste before AI; the core skill is timeless critical judgment and aesthetic discernment. AI merely amplifies and reveals mediocrity, making breadth of taste especially valuable as users switch across domains. Build taste deliberately through comparison, studying excellence, iterative refinement, and demanding proof from those who preach it.

Key Points

• Taste—critical judgment and aesthetic discernment—predates AI and should have been practiced all along.
• AI accelerates output but exposes existing mediocrity; many critics of AI-generated slop produced tasteless work before AI.
• Taste manifests as contextual appropriateness, quality recognition, iterative refinement, and ethical boundaries.
• Breadth of taste (cross-domain judgment) is especially valuable with AI, while depth helps but can make experts more AI-reluctant.
• Develop taste deliberately through comparison, studying exemplars, iterative improvement, and scrutinizing the credibility of those preaching about taste.

Sentiment

The overall sentiment of the discussion is largely agreeable and slightly re-interpretive. The single commenter explicitly agrees with the article's core premise that objective quality differences exist in practical work, which the article attributes to "taste." The only point of divergence is a semantic one, where the commenter suggests alternative terminology like "craftsmanship" or "attention to detail" might better describe these qualities in a practical context. Thus, the sentiment is generally positive towards the article's underlying message, with a minor refinement concerning its chosen terminology.

In Agreement

• For many of the practical examples cited in the article, there are clear, objective distinctions between better and worse quality work.
• The underlying qualities the article champions, such as critical judgment, attention to detail, and the ability to distinguish refined from merely functional output, are crucial for producing high-quality work.

Opposed

• The term "taste" is inherently subjective, and for the objective quality differences highlighted in the article, terms like "craftsmanship" or "attention to detail" might be more precise and appropriate than "taste," which is more closely associated with art.