Willem Van Lancker

Taste in AI discourse conflates two distinct concepts—personal taste and cultural tastefulousness—and understanding how these interact is crucial for maintaining human advantage in an AI-augmented world.

“Says taste is a product of friction, earned through making and repeated discernment.”

As AI makes surface-level creative work easy, the distinctive value of creative work shifts from technical execution to personal experience and specificity—what the author calls 'thisness'—which becomes a durable competitive edge.

“Argued that productive friction in creative work is what AI threatens to take away.”

Willem Van Lancker launches Untitled, an AI tool that helps founders name their products through a systematic six-step process (Orient, Explore, Distill, Validate, Commit, Execute) that can be completed in an afternoon.

“Created Untitled, a software tool and guide to help founders find product names, after working with nearly a hundred startups on naming.”