Many people with fully-functional taste buds genuinely find gruel delicious. Oatmeal is a variety of gruel.
People like what they like and aren't ever "wrong" for having their own tastes. I think claiming that other people have no or bad taste isn't really a supportable stance. It's totally valid to say that someone doesn't share your tastes, but not that either of you are right or wrong for having those tastes.
Also, tangentially related, you know that cliche "the customer is always right"? That's only the first half of the sentence that is a quote of. The second half is "in matters of taste". The reason the cliche is obviously wrong is because it omits that.
Probably the way people in the 20th century envisioned AGI rising out of GOFAI (also quite impossible in its own way) would have produced an "alien" entity with the properties you desire