Taste Is The Only Moat Left | NYU Professor Ruby Thelot Explains
Jul 28, 2026 · 34:32
In this episode, NYU professor and cyber ethnographer Ruby Justice Thelot unpacks how internet culture has balkanized into distinct digital communities, each with its own vernacular and norms, and argues that taste—historically a mechanism for virtuous consumption in an age of abundance—is the only moat left in an AI-driven world. Thelot explains that 50% of internet traffic is now bots, introducing 'machinic taste' where algorithms, audiences, and agents shape aesthetics and behavior. He reveals that while Americans broadly distrust 'AI' due to fears of job loss—as shown by his analysis of 5,000 videos on the topic—they enthusiastically use chatbots for practical tasks like fixing a faucet, a sentiment captured in Anthropic's survey of 85,000 users. Thelot also discusses how trends like 'heteropessimism' are often misidentified because journalists' algorithms amplify loud minorities, and he predicts techno-optimism will rise only when AI's benefits directly align with people's desire to remain employed and provide for their families.
