Effort over taste

With LLMs, it's so easy now to create whatever you want: an app, a website, an essay, you name it. And just like that, people are putting the saddles on these LLMs, spurring them to create a lot, a lot of things.

Here is a recent chart from GitHub:

If anyone can execute an idea so easily, how can the thing you make stand out?

The tech Twittersphere has the answer, and it's having good "taste", likely inspired by Paul Graham's essay Taste for Makers. In online discourse, "taste" is often used to mean one's subjective opinions. (Ironically, in that essay, Paul argues against that very definition.)

Going with the common definition though, I don't think that "having good taste" is a very helpful advice. Instead, I prefer a more intuitive and actionable term: effort. As a consumer in this era of AI slop armageddon, this is my only filter before giving your work a chance. Basically, when I glance at the thing you made, does it immediately scream "AI-generated"?

Most projects I see on Reddit and X fail at this. So often when I see someone's Reddit post promoting their project, the post is riddled with Claude-isms: "load-bearing", "seam", "affordance", "shape", etc. (unfortunately I could go on and on). And when I go on their website, it's full of the same slop UI patterns.

I'm not out here actively trying to scrutinize people's work. It's just that these patterns get very, very obvious, and also painful to keep seeing. If the "frontend" of your work looks like it was done with a single prompt, what stops me from assuming its "backend" was done the same way?

AI is an excellent tool for prototyping from your ideas, but don't stop there. Look at it and understand it, refine it, then take some time before looking at it again, and refining it again. Repeat that again, again, and again.

This sounds like a lot of work, but it'll be worth it because:

1. You'll learn a ton. This will compound and carry over to your next work.
2. The effort will show itself, and your work will likely be received better.
3. Bonus: You might love the process! Craftsmanship is rewarding in and of itself.