Taylor Hawkins, Umami, and the Limits of Artificial Creativity

Photo: Martin Philbey/Redferns

Everyone’s talking about AI these days. In podcasts, newspapers, sales meetings, pitch decks. Many use it as a buzzword – much like umami.

It reminds me of all the home cooks and TV chefs who throw the word around as if it were an ingredient. “A little more soy sauce for more umami,” they say – as if you could pour it from a bottle. But you can’t.

Umami isn’t an ingredient. It’s an experience.

I hear a lot of people without much depth of knowledge – you know, the kind who watched a few videos on YouTube or played around with an AI tool for an evening… Who say things like: You can just do that with AI. Or: Just run it through an AI tool and you’re done.

But AI is not some kind of magic dust, like the amateur chefs’ idea of umami, that you can sprinkle over your business and suddenly become innovative. It’s a tool – and sometimes a powerful one – but without human direction, feeling, and intent, it’s really just… a hammer lying on an empty table.

I sometimes think about Taylor Hawkins. Foo Fighters’ former drummer (R.I.P).

I’m a former drummer myself, and I still geek out over drumwork by Stewart Copeland, Neil Peart, Phil Collins or Jeff Porcaro. Yeah, I know – serious drum nerd territory.

The other day, I was scrolling through some old playlists and came across All My Life by Foo Fighters. The song is quite complex in its structure. Entirely dependent on the music reflecting the lyrics and emotion. Quiet one moment, full force the next, then back to something in between. All led by human feeling.

The whole band shaped it – but I (perhaps biased as a drummer) believe Taylor brought something extra that helped elevate the song into a masterpiece. That kind of creation might be imitated by code or a prompt – but it will never emerge from it.

AI can’t create. But it can help us create.

With AI, we can accelerate. Create faster. Test more ideas. Shift gears.

Just like a carpenter with the right tools, we – as creatives, strategists, designers, and entrepreneurs – can take bigger steps if we know how the tools work.

The truly skilled chefs rarely (actually never) talk about umami.

They speak of balance, texture, tone, and feeling.

They know flavor doesn’t lie in a word – it lives in the whole.

The same goes for AI. It can assist, accelerate, and enhance.

But the spark – the soul – still comes from us. Thanks, Taylor, for all your magic.