Taste

We’re living in an exciting time, at a point when we can create more than we can consume. It’s amazing to see the rapid expansion of almost every creative pursuit due to the rise of AI, more and more people are able to create and it’s amazing to see ideas come to life at such a speed. I had a conversation with my brother about how this has impacted value in software engineering; in years prior, we held the coveted position of being dream-enablers, it was up to us to create something out of nothing. AI for all its faults of hallucinating or getting rid of data it shouldn’t, is able to do a great deal of heavy-lifting that wasn’t possible, and dare I say, sometimes, it even finishes the work with very little fuss.

These advances in means of productions, from conception to prototype in a matter of minutes, has brought us to an inevitable inflection point where creation and usefulness are colliding violently. Subconsciously, I have found myself skipping or navigating away from solutions that seem AI-generated, not necessarily AI-slop, but anything that doesn’t show me a great level of hand-detail or craftiness. I think this is the time when design has been thrust into the spotlight and will determine a lot about whether a product is perceived to be good enough, or forgettable. What’s even more interesting is, as AI continues to get better, functionally I think it’ll most likely accomplish the tasks it’s given but the branding and presentation will determine adoption.

With that said, I am thinking deeply about taste in product development. In a field full of options, infinite options, its going to take people with great taste, not just visually, but holistically, to identify and solve for some problems in the most intuitive and appealing way possible that sets them apart. Dating back to the 2000s when Google was all the rage, their design did not need to be impressive but they had a highly functional product. I remember wondering if Google had a design team at all compared to Apple and other companies whose design language was just a lot more palatable. Unless a startup is doing something HARD today, a lack of finesse and polish, will likely render it forgettable in a sea of almost-identical products.

My reading is focused on how people are solving for this, and taking advantage to provide the now-scarce skill of human design coupled with the efficiency and scale of operational AI.