The hard work of having "good taste"
It's Been a Minute
NPR
4.7 • 9.2K Ratings
🗓️ 27 March 2026
⏱️ 18 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
Having a good sense of taste is something like a cultural badge of honor: the result of hard work understanding what you find beautiful and why it moves you. Silicon Valley tech bros are latching onto taste as a new buzzword, and some are even suggesting that their products can give you a fast track to refining your own taste.
Brittany is joined by Kyle Chayka, staff writer at The New Yorker, and Kate Wagner, architecture critic at The Nation, to find out whether or not taste can be created from terabytes of AI data. You can read Kyle's piece, titled, 'Why Tech Bros Are Now Obsessed with Taste' in The New Yorker.
Want more about Tech and Culture? Check out these episodes:
The false promise of a tech job.
Can you trust AI search results?
Support Public Media. Join NPR Plus.
Follow Brittany on Instagram: @bmluse
For handpicked podcast recommendations every week, subscribe to NPR’s Pod Club newsletter at npr.org/podclub.
See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for sponsorship and to manage your podcast sponsorship preferences.
NPR Privacy Policy
Transcript
Click on a timestamp to play from that location
| 0:00.0 | On a scale of 1 to 10, how good is each of your aesthetic tastes? |
| 0:05.0 | Um, I would say my personal taste is like a 7, um, but I know it should be higher, so maybe it's like a 9. |
| 0:12.0 | Okay, I'll give you a 9.5. I'm gonna raise you on that one. I like that. |
| 0:15.0 | Okay, what about you, Kyle? |
| 0:17.0 | You can't say 10. It would be tasteless to say 10. And I think you have taste in different areas, right? |
| 0:23.8 | Like, my fashion taste, I would not say is that amazing. My contemporary art taste, I would give myself an 8.5, at least. |
| 0:35.4 | Who was the first taste maker in your life? |
| 0:39.5 | For me, it was my Aunt Cassandra. |
| 0:41.4 | She always looked so fly whatever I saw her. |
| 0:45.3 | She had the Reebok lady's sneaker in every color. |
| 0:49.3 | And she also had the most spectacular condo in Atlanta. |
| 0:52.0 | High ceilings, lots of light, art from around the world. |
| 0:55.5 | Myacassandra is still my girl to this day. |
| 1:00.0 | And over time, I discovered Elsa Clench on CNN, blogs, and my friends in high school and |
| 1:06.3 | college, they all influence my taste. |
| 1:08.4 | But I want you to meet the new taste makers of our time. |
| 1:14.0 | AI chatbots? |
| 1:16.1 | At least they want to be. |
| 1:17.8 | Taste is the new Silicon Valley buzzword. |
| 1:20.8 | From venture capitalist to AI opportunity peddlers, |
| 1:23.7 | these guys seem to think that good taste will be the one thing |
| 1:27.0 | that will set you apart from everyone in your life |
... |
Please login to see the full transcript.
Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from NPR, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.
Generated transcripts are the property of NPR and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.
Copyright © Tapesearch 2026.