Researcher on retraining the 'idea muscle' as AI commoditizes intelligence
dejavucoder · x · 2026-09-23
A researcher deep into post-training literature and RL for LLMs recounts realizing he couldn't come up with ideas that possessed him — the result of years working on other people's objectives, dismissing projects as cliché, and letting small sparks die, leaving his 'idea muscle' atrophied.
Key points:
- Good ideas don't need to be groundbreaking — creative and useful is enough for a solid next experiment.
- Consistently generating many good ideas is a core research skill that needs deliberate cultivation.
- With intelligence commoditized in knowledge and coding work by AI, agency and taste matter more than ever, and good ideas are becoming the next scarce resource.
He is now treating idea generation as deliberate practice, reading up on creativity as serious coursework.
More from AGI Musings
- gLM2 genomic language model designs new-to-nature biosynthetic enzymes — anshulkundaje · 2026-09-23
- CAIS: AI can now automate 20.8% of remote labor projects, up from 2.5% a year ago — ZeroStateReflex · 2026-09-23
- Peter Diamandis: AI companies must own their releases—speed and accountability can coexist — PeterDiamandis · 2026-09-23
- Intelligence may become abundant before power plants and fabs can keep up, argues thread — r0ck3t23 · 2026-09-23
- Guardian essay: a multilingual academic's complicated love affair with AI — nordicinst · 2026-09-23
- Monitoring AI agents' bookings takes as much bandwidth as doing it yourself — nabeelqu · 2026-09-23