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How to get new ideas

paulgraham.com

21–30 of 222 posts

Re: How to get new ideas

#21
post #3

This essay is very short. Has he given up on writing? Maybe too much Twitter has melted his brian.

Well, I asked GPT-3 to make this longer:

One of the surest ways to come up with new ideas is to pay attention to what doesn't fit in. We're used to seeing things in a certain way, and often times it's the things that don't quite fit into our preconceived notions that can provide the best insights. The most obvious place to look for these anomalies is at the frontiers of knowledge.

Knowledge grows like a fractal; from a distance its edges may appear smooth, but when you get closer you begin to see the jagged gaps and spaces. These gaps can be surprisingly obvious; it can seem strange that no one has thought to ask a certain question or investigate a certain problem. When you explore them, you can often discover entirely new areas of knowledge that have been previously untouched.

That's why it's useful to investigate these gaps in knowledge. It may feel uncomfortable at first; we don't always like to challenge our preconceptions and explore things beyond our comfort zone. But often times this can be the source of some of our best ideas.

You don't even have to look far for these anomalies; they can be found in everyday life. Much of stand-up comedy is based on this, by finding the oddities and quirks about our daily lives that we normally take for granted.

So don't be afraid to take a closer look at what seems strange or missing or broken. It could lead you to unexpected discovery and perhaps even uncover some of your best ideas. This may be challenging and uncomfortable, but it's often worth it.

Re: How to get new ideas

#22
Have a anomoulus brain, that recombines things that do not belong together (conspiracy theories) but have enough filter to recognize the the bad recombinations. Train said brain with rewards for recombinations, even ridculous ones.

Also recongize that inventors would be excellent in story writting when asked to produce a recipe for creativity. So the step by step instructions may be nonsense.

Creativity, the far reaching one, not the incremental one, is topological adjunct to insanity. Which is why the radical new things, only get funded in times of desperation. If I were a inventor, i would be heading for ukraine or russia right now.

Re: How to get new ideas

#23

Lots of truth to this. Just start building. Build for yourself and real people, not imagined profiles of people. The more you build, the more you explore, the more you'll find low-hanging useful ideas. As you encounter them it’ll surprise you that the space is mostly empty. Patio11 tweeted about using ChatGPT to immitate social signaling by rewriting content. I thought that was fun so I started doing it. That grew in…

But can you build products on ChatGPT with the assurance that they will not yank their service from under you in the future, like how Twitter did?

Re: How to get new ideas

#25
Real progress in any field or endeavor comes down to about 5% new ideas and creativity, 95% hard work putting those new ideas into practice or building something functional out of them.

That 5% is pretty critical however, as without it you're just continuing to redo what's already been done.

Re: How to get new ideas

#26

Lots of truth to this. Just start building. Build for yourself and real people, not imagined profiles of people. The more you build, the more you explore, the more you'll find low-hanging useful ideas. As you encounter them it’ll surprise you that the space is mostly empty. Patio11 tweeted about using ChatGPT to immitate social signaling by rewriting content. I thought that was fun so I started doing it. That grew in…

Your careers and privacy policy page links in the footer just link to the home page.

Re: How to get new ideas

#28
post #23

Lots of truth to this. Just start building. Build for yourself and real people, not imagined profiles of people. The more you build, the more you explore, the more you'll find low-hanging useful ideas. As you encounter them it’ll surprise you that the space is mostly empty. Patio11 tweeted about using ChatGPT to immitate social signaling by rewriting content. I thought that was fun so I started doing it. That grew in…

But can you build products on ChatGPT with the assurance that they will not yank their service from under you in the future, like how Twitter did?

This space is getting so much interest that OpenAI will not be the only one providing LLM as a service forever.
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