“We're going to get used to slop and start thinking it's normal, as a society. And I don't want that to happen.”
Thais Castello Branco is the solo founder of Taste Labs, which just raised $18.5M to teach AI models taste.
Once you notice the problem she is working on, you see it everywhere.
The em dash. The purple gradient. The website that looks polished at first glance but somehow feels like every other AI-made website.
Thais thinks that is more than an aesthetic annoyance. If the bar stays low for long enough, we may stop noticing that it is low.
Taste Labs is her attempt to raise that bar without imposing one style on everyone.
To do that, she first had to answer a deceptively difficult question: What is taste?
She spent months talking with philosophers, designers, and researchers. The answer she landed on separates taste from personal preference and explains why making AI more random will not make it more creative.
Listen now on the Solo Founders Podcast:
Solo, together.
Kieran
