'Having Taste' as an Artist—Age of AI

Having taste is key to have in the age of Generative AI. See the example of Rick Rubin in The Future with Generative AI.

It’s similar to a chef. A good chef will have the best taste and Creativity combined. As writers and artists, we need to use the same strategy and skills as a gourmet chef. Using taste as a differentiator from others.

Knowing what we want, but better, what we don’t. Same as always, Hell Yeah or No, thanks Derek Sivers (also what Wes McKinney concluded in Mythical Agent Month).

Also, my own learning from building a LOC (line of code) email client called Neomd with a solely agentic workflow, but still verifying every plan and following all the code changes manually. And most importantly, with a clear vision and plan for what the outcome should be, I added my taste, as Rick Rubin would say in a viral clip that he has “absolutely no ability, only adding his taste”:

The confidence that I have in my taste and my ability to express what I feel has proven helpful for artists.

A bit abstract, but this is what we have come to when we use agents: we need to add our taste. And how do we do that? With seniority and experience. The right foundations are still needed to guide and spot architectural errors in the model, or to detect if it drifts in the wrong direction.

Some say we need to be the product manager kind of type to guide the agents. I’d say yes, one part, but having experienced it, and also having a stable or rigid framework/structure of your project where the agents work in.

Even better if the structure is a modular setup, because then you can more easily add features without touching code at the heart of it and breaking it, I wrote more at Using an Existing Framework.

You need creativity, insight, character - because Creativity is Forward Looking, and LLM are backward looking. You can’t create a unique game from just copying old stuff.

The Future with Generative AI.

• Will AI Replace Human Thinking?
• Rick Rubin
• How to develop good taste: Good taste = a language. Good taste means speaking the right words so you can say what you’re wanting to say. Featuring Dave Grohl in the video.

Origin: Vibe Coding