Why Taste May Be the Ultimate Irreplaceable Human Commodity

In a world where AI seemingly can make more and more decisions for us, is taste the real commodity that will survive? That’s the premise for an article I read this week all about the ​lasting value of good taste​. The idea reminded me of a ​scene I love from the 80s movie Dirty Rotten Scoundrels​ starring Steve Martin and Michael Caine as dueling thieves forced to collaborate with hilarious results. Caine’s character tries to explain to Martin why he became a con artist in the first place:

“Freddie, as a younger man, I was a sculptor, a painter and a musician. There was just one problem. I wasn’t very good … I had taste and style but not talent. As a matter of fact, I was dreadful. I knew my limitations. Fortunately, I discovered that taste and style were commodities that people desired.”

Every week there are stories about how we are all finding what makes us valuable as more things around us get automated. There is a core idea behind this concept of taste as a uniquely human quality that is intriguing. As the article goes on to share:

“Taste is a subtle sensibility, more often a secret weapon than a person’s defining characteristic. But we’re entering a time when its importance has never been greater … in a world where machines can generate infinite variations, the ability to discern which of those variation is most meaningful, most beautiful, or more resonant may provide to be the rarest—and most valuable—skill of all.”

To a degree, this is how I have always seen the role of this newsletter and my mission in writing it to share with you every week. My goal is to surface stories that matter and to help make sense of a noisy media ecosystem while offering a different perspective you may not find elsewhere. This is a form of taste, and one I have always felt driven to try and build to share every week.