AI had Bad Taste

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AI is amazing. I use it all the time.

But I also think we need to be very clear about what it is and what it is not.

It does not understand taste.

It does not understand humanity, or how people live, or why one room makes you want to stay and another room makes you want to leave. It does not understand the way a family actually lives in a house. The mess, the habits, the dogs, the kids, the husband who only sits in one chair, the person who needs quiet, the person who likes to cook while everyone hangs around the island.

And even if it could understand all of that, it would be pulling from millions of things that have absolutely nothing to do with you.

That is the part people forget.

AI is not sitting with you in your kitchen. It is not watching how your family moves through the house. It is not noticing that you say you want formal, but every image you save feels relaxed. It is not hearing you talk about your childhood home, or noticing that every time you describe your perfect day it involves being outside.

It is not understanding the tiny, weird, wonderful things that make your life your life.

Design is not just “make me a pretty room.”

Pretty is easy.

Good is harder.

A beautiful room can still feel wrong.

Good design knows when something is too much. Or not enough. It knows when a room needs warmth, or restraint, or a little tension. It knows when something should be edited out, even when it is beautiful.

AI can show you a hundred rooms in ten seconds.

But it cannot tell you which one feels right for you.

And a lot of what it creates is the average of everything. The average of thousands of images, trends, homes, hotels, Pinterest boards and magazine spreads.

Sometimes that is helpful.

Sometimes it just creates more noise.

The people who get the most from AI are usually the people who already know what they are looking for. They can look at what it produces and say, no, warmer. No, less expected. No, that feels generic. No, that doesn’t feel like me.

They are directing it.

The people who struggle with AI are often asking it to make the decisions for them.

And that is where things go sideways.

Because AI doesn’t know what good taste is. It doesn’t know what makes something timeless. It doesn’t know what will still feel special ten years from now. It doesn’t know your family, your routines, your aspirations, or the way you want to feel when you walk through your front door.

It only knows what has already been done.

A home should feel personal. It should tell your story, not the internet’s story.

And for all the incredible things AI can do, that part still comes from people