taste and agency
the machines can generate now. endlessly. text, images, video, code, music... anything you can describe, they can produce. a thousand variations before you finish your coffee. so what's left for you? two things. taste. and agency. ai can remix and recombine at scale that would have seemed like magic five years ago. but here's what it cannot do... it cannot choose. it cannot wake up at 3am obsessed with an idea that won't let go. it cannot say "this matters" and actually mean it. it cannot refuse.
the machine has no conviction. no obsession. no taste. it optimizes for metrics. you optimize for meaning. that gap is everything. i've watched this pattern before. the internet was supposed to make human connection obsolete... it made it more valuable. smartphones were supposed to distract us into oblivion... they created a premium on presence. social media was supposed to democratize attention... it made authentic voice priceless. every wave scares people. every wave proves the same thing. the tools change. the humans matter more. think about what's actually happening. when anyone can generate anything, what becomes scarce? not the output. not the production value. what becomes scarce is the person who knows what's worth making in the first place. what becomes scarce is vision. point of view. the conviction to say "this, not that."
the robot can paint but doesn't know what's worth painting. the algorithm can write but doesn't know what's worth saying. the machine calculates but cannot care. here's the shift nobody talks about. when generation becomes infinite, curation becomes the art. the question stops being "can you make it?" and becomes "should you?" and then... "will you, even when nobody's asking?" that's taste. knowing what to create when you could create anything. that's agency. creating it anyway because you have to.
long term this changes everything about what we value. we're moving from a world that rewarded execution to a world that rewards judgment. the winners won't be the ones who produce the most... they'll be the ones who know what's worth producing. the ones who look at infinite options and choose with conviction. this is why i'm bullish on humans. not because ai won't get better... it will. but because the more powerful the tools become, the more we need people who know what to build with them. the hammer doesn't know what deserves to be built. it never will. so while everyone panics about machines taking over, i'm watching for the people sharpening their taste. developing their point of view. building the muscle of agency. learning to say no to a thousand good options so they can say yes to the one that matters.
those are the ones who'll thrive. those are the ones who already do. taste and agency. that's what's left. and it's everthing. the question isn't whether ai will change the game. it already has. the question is whether you're developing what it can't replicate. are you?
