Cultivating Taste in the Age of AI

We live in a world driven by algorithms. Each piece of content we consume is meticulously curated—designed to reinforce our biases and keep us consuming passively. AI chats are always within reach, tempting us to accept easy answers without actually thinking them through.

AI-generated content is everywhere, churning out impersonal, sterile products. In an AI world where outputs become increasingly commoditized, critical thinking is our most valuable tool. And maybe our most endangered.

Let me be clear: I love AI. I use it every day and believe in its potential to enhance creativity and drive innovation. This piece, for example, began in ChatGPT, where it helped me synthesize ideas into a rough hypothesis. But that was just step one. From there, I refined every word myself—working with AI as a partner, not a replacement. The joy for me is in the process, the satisfaction of shaping raw thoughts into polished ideas.

The issue isn’t AI itself. The issue is how we use it.

Critical Thinking: The Key to Refined Taste

At the core of this engagement is critical thinking. It’s what allows us to develop “taste”—the ability to discern quality, to know what makes something truly good or bad. As AI commoditizes more and more outputs, those who cultivate taste through active analysis will stand out. They’ll create work that isn’t just passable, but exceptional.

And this isn’t just about aesthetics. It’s about first principles—the deep, foundational concepts that form the bedrock of any discipline. When we start from these core truths, we build sharper intuition and make better decisions.

AI as a Collaborative Tool, Not the Answer

Too often, AI is seen as a shortcut or a one-size-fits-all solution. But that mindset leads to passive consumption—accepting whatever the AI bot spits out (the AI “slop”). The real opportunity is to treat AI as a creative partner. We can critically analyze its suggestions, apply our personal knowledge, and reshape its outputs to fit our unique taste. AI can’t replace the human instinct for quality, but it can enhance it when we remain engaged.

Active Analysis Over Passive Consumption

Passive consumption is easy. We’re fed content, products, and even ideas without having to question them. But critical thinking asks us to actively engage. It asks us to seek out, question, and reshape information until it works for us—until it aligns with our own taste and context. Applying frameworks isn’t about following a blueprint. It’s about adapting them to create tailored and nuanced solutions—our own expression of the framework.

In the end, everything is a remix. AI gives us new modes of working, but it’s critical thinking that shapes the inputs into something unmistakably ours. With a cultivated sense of taste and an analytical mind, we can move beyond commoditized outputs and create something that stands apart—something truly valuable, something human, something beautiful.