In my previous blog post, I emphasized the importance of developing a polymath skill-set in our AI-assisted world. However, after reflecting on this while listening to Jony Ive’s insights, I’ve realized that not all skills will carry equal weight across different fields in our future.
My expertise lies in software development and management—both structural disciplines that don’t have inherent value but serve external goals. Great software and management make achieving these external goals more effective and efficient. In many ways, software functions as a tool of management, with managers deeply invested in how digital systems can represent their desired structures and align with company vision.
Historically, software has been expensive to create yet costs almost nothing to distribute, leading to a trend of generalizing software products and pursuing winner-takes-all strategies. This dynamic forced management to adapt to these structures—we work with the tools that become standard.
The AI revolution is changing this equation fundamentally. Software development is becoming dramatically cheaper and increasingly customizable to our specific needs. Soon, we’ll have access to affordable, tailor-made software solutions powered by AI.
Furthermore, AI will soon perform significant portions of cognitive labor, making much of our cooperation-oriented knowledge less critical. Computing power and certain skills will become essentially “free” resources in the near future.
However, these dynamics will primarily benefit the measurable aspects of our world—areas with clear rules and defined end goals. AI will excel at optimizing product attributes that we can measure and customize to our specifications.
What these systems cannot easily replicate is taste.
It’s a misconception that we can precisely articulate everything we want. Many of our deepest desires and preferences remain ineffable, existing beyond the realm of what we can explicitly define.
This is where taste becomes invaluable. Design, fundamentally shaped by taste, brings order to chaos and isolates the essence of complex challenges. Design leverages all the creative properties of polymathy.
Without taste, we will inevitably end up with technically sound but fundamentally trivial solutions that fail to account for user joy and the evolving nature of human experience.
Technical professionals have historically tended to undervalue artistic aspects, preferring the seemingly greater power of well-defined logical terms. Ironically, these precisely defined concepts are exactly what AI can learn most effectively—the consistent knowledge base of hard sciences.
Similarly, managerial disciplines often view design as merely a cost center managed by marketing teams, believing that “real money” comes from conventional marketing and advertising strategies.
AI will face significant challenges in mastering the subjective and ever-evolving world of design. Unlike technical fields with clear rules, design isn’t governed by a fixed ruleset—it encompasses everything expressed through your work.
Design is fundamentally about personal integrity and authentic expression. It transcends superficial appearance, embodying beauty, motivation, and creativity as an evolving process that remains deeply personal.
I believe design and taste will become among the most crucial skills of this century.
Design will evolve from its currently neglected position to become one of the most desired capabilities. While technical and managerial skills may be today’s most valued attributes, design will emerge as the preeminent skill of the AI era—and the polymath who excels in design will thrive in this new landscape.
In a world where AI can handle the measurable and definable, our uniquely human capacity for taste will become our greatest competitive advantage.