Imagination, taste, and agency
In plain termsAI can produce endless options, but it doesn’t care which one is good, true, or meaningful. That’s where your three human skills come in: imagination (picturing something new), taste (recognizing what’s good), and agency (choosing, acting, and owning the result). The more AI can make, the more these choices matter.
Intelligence without human input goes nowhere
AI can generate a thousand ideas in seconds, but it doesn’t know which matters to you or the world. It has no taste and no stake in the outcome. That’s where you come in.
Imagination
You define the vision. AI can only help build what you’ve already imagined.
Taste
Knowing what’s good, what resonates, and what to cut.
Agency
You decide what gets made, for whom, and why it matters.
The power of imagination: everything ever made started as a picture in someone’s head
- 1Imagine
See what does not exist yet.
- 2Connect
Mix ideas no one has combined.
- 3Care
Picture what other people need.
“It comes down to trying to expose yourself to the best things that humans have done, and then try to bring those things into what you’re doing.”
— Steve Jobs
Taste is the new competitive advantage
Taste is judgment
Every prompt is a creative decision you own.
Taste is empathy
Knowing what your audience needs before they can say it.
Taste is the moat
AI democratizes production. Taste stays scarce.
“The critical dividing line in our economy is no longer simply education or specialization, but rather agency itself: the raw determination to make things happen without waiting for permission.”
— Gian Segato, “Agency is Eating the World” (April 2025)
“Intelligence is now everywhere. It’s on tap. It’s no longer scarce. The rare thing now is the ability and will to use it effectively.”
— Jeff Giesea, “Agency is the new superpower” (March 14, 2025)
What high-agency operators do
Act without permission
They act without waiting for permission.
Ship real things
They ship real things rather than just chat with AI.
Self-driven
They are self-driven rather than directed by an authority.
Takeaway: The human is still very much in the loop, and always will be. Agency is “the ability to start, decide, act, adapt, and follow through.”
Sources: Segato (2025), giansegato.com; Giesea (2025), jeffgiesea.substack.com; Shah (2026), simple.ai; bitkarrot (2026), Substack.
In plain termsImagination engineering means using AI tools to turn an idea in your head into something people can see, hear, or use. AI is like a studio that anyone can now walk into. The studio doesn’t supply the vision — you do, by describing what you want, judging what you get, and refining it until it matches.
Imagination engineering and Artificial General Imagination
Steve Jobs called the computer a “bicycle for the mind.” Today’s AI systems are closer to recording studios, film sets, and engineering labs for the imagination.
1 · Create more things
Platforms like Suno act as a recording studio for the imagination. What you do: describe a song, get a draft in minutes; you choose what’s worth keeping.
2 · Achieve greater scale
Voice-directed agents build from human intent. What you do: describe an app, agents build it; you test it with real users.
3 · Embrace expanded vision
One person can generate and edit video by talking to an AI agent. What you do: you direct the story.
A new concept — Artificial General Imagination: We’ve debated when AI will match human intelligence. Meanwhile, AI has become fuel for human imagination at a scale unthinkable five years ago. We should also ask what it unlocks in us.
Not just a song. A radio-ready track.
Suno produces fully mixed and mastered music.
Not just a website. A shipped product.
Lovable builds and deploys full web apps with real UX, in minutes.
Not just an image. A campaign.
Midjourney and Ideogram produce art-directed, print-ready visuals.
Takeaway: AGI gets the headlines. Artificial General Imagination — the ability to create anything at a professional level — may already be here. You don’t need a team. You need taste, a clear idea, and the habit of iterating.
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