The Purveyor of Taste

For the past year, I’ve been in a constant dialogue with AI. What started as curiosity—experimenting with generative models for writing, design, and ideation—has turned into something much more integral. AI is no longer just a tool I pick up and put down; it’s a collaborator, an extension of my creative process.

In the last six months, I’ve found a rhythm. Claude has become my sparring partner for coding, refining logic, and structuring ideas. ChatGPT, with its persistent memory, is where I offload thoughts, build frameworks, and test how ideas evolve over time. And when it comes to images, I operate with the precision of a creative director—Midjourney and Visual Electric allow me to materialize concepts in ways I never could before.

The more I work with AI, the more its power becomes apparent. But so does something even more fundamental: AI is not the arbiter of quality—we are. We are the purveyors of taste.

This is what separates good from great. We know when something needs more refinement, when a phrase lands flat, when an image lacks depth or an idea needs a sharper edge. We sense when AI-generated outputs are off, hallucinatory, or missing the human touch. AI generates; we direct.

It’s no different from filmmaking. Directors don’t operate the cameras, they don’t build the sets, they don’t run the lighting. But they see the vision before it exists, and they know how to orchestrate every piece to make it real. AI is one of many tools to accomplish a vision, but the vision remains uniquely human.

I’ve never felt more creatively powerful. My output has multiplied. My ability to iterate—faster, sharper, with more precision—has transformed the way I work. AI allows me to move through ideas at an unprecedented speed, but the real advantage isn’t just efficiency. It’s in how I train my instincts, how I refine my sense of what’s good.

Because the real work isn’t just production—it’s taste. Raising the bar and cultivating an internal standard of excellence. And that’s where human intuition comes in. You can’t outsource taste to an algorithm. It comes from exploring art, literature, philosophy. It comes from studying the masters, from understanding the systems of human creativity that have endured over centuries. The commercialization of ideas, the presence of culture, the ability to curate and separate the wheat from the chaff—these are distinctly human skills.

We are not being replaced. Quite the opposite. This is the age where human agency matters more than ever. AI is abundant; discernment is rare.

The ones who will thrive are not just the ones who know how to use these tools, but the ones who know how to see. To judge. To refine.

The ones who remain the purveyors of taste.