(2022-12-03) Mollick How To Use Ai To Generate Ideas

Ethan Mollick: How to... use AI to generate ideas. Despite of (or in fact, because of) all its constraints and weirdness, it (ChatGPT) is perfect for idea generation. There are a few reasons why I think this is true. First, idea generation benefits from differences

a way of adding extreme difference and even weirdness to your idea generation sessions that can be useful to build on. (interestingness)

Just sign up at Open AI playground, or even better ChatGPT, and start working. But how can it help you generate ideas? We can turn to the science of idea generation to get some hints.

A way to generate good ideas is to change the boundaries of the problem by altering the constraints you face

For example:
You can consider extreme users of a product or service, which can force you to think of novel angles: How would an astronaut use a common product? What about a child?

You can consider opposites, which force you to think about the space more generally: What would you do if you were trying to make the problem worse?

watching people go about an activity that you are interested in exploring. While nothing beats a real human, an AI interview can be surprisingly enlightening first step. You just need to make it “act” the part. This can involve asking it to “imagine you are a ____, how would you answer”

Again, this is no substitute for actual interviews, but it is often a useful way to get you to think about problem areas you haven’t considered, and to prepare yourself to get better data from the real world.

Yes, and…
The classic improv technique for playing with ideas works with AI as well. Agree with its points while adding something new to focus in on areas you want to think about more Improv

Go for volume.
There is a lot of research showing you need to generate a lot of ideas to find good ideas

Make it weird.

Ask the AI to present you a solution in the form of a Johnny Cash song, a script from Seinfeld, described by an alien, written by the smartest woman in the world, or any other variation you can think of.

We have a new source of oddness in the world, and that is a powerful seed for creativity.