The New Most Important Skill

Do you have it?

I won’t drag this out: Taste is the skill. It might be better called a trait than a skill. How much of it can be learnt? We all know people who are intelligent or successful yet have no sense of taste at all. It’s a peak hilarity when someone has money to throw at their bad taste. Picture the house whose walls squirm around each gaudy room, or the colours of an outfit who’ve strayed far from their original coordinated tribe, and now huddle with strangers to survive.

A common refrain you’ll hear these days is: “you won’t be outcompeted by AI; you’ll be outcompeted by a person using AI.” In my view, true. As has been the case all too often, the hybrid of man and machine is superior to either alone.

The iconic jazz pianist Bill Evans said he trusted the ear of an average audience member to a jazz aficionado when it came to judging the quality of his music. An expert can be clouded by knowledge, especially in the sensory realm. The beginner’s ear is pure, judging only by pleasure.

Taste is not design. Design is the conception or construction of a thing. Taste is the arbiter of a thing. As design becomes ever more outsourced to artificial intelligence, taste will grow in power. The person who can assess, wins. We’re entering the age of the editor, where tweaks of taste decide competitive advantage.

Be like a judge of a talent show, then, hands perched above the buzzer ready to smite any generated content that doesn’t do it for you. Prompt, assess, discard or keep. Roll content across your tastebuds and pray your palate serves you well.