AI doesn't give you ideas

The good ideas were never in the machine. They were in you.

The lesson

Ask AI for ten ideas and you'll shrug at nine. But somewhere in that list, one makes you say: well, not that, but... and suddenly you're describing what you actually want. It works like a good interviewer. The value isn't the answers. It's what the questions pull out of you.

Try it — 60 seconds

I want to start something new. Don't pitch me ideas yet — interview me. Ask five questions, one at a time, about what I care about. Then show me the three ideas hiding in my answers.

Copy it into ChatGPT, Claude, or Gemini — whichever you already use. Fill in the brackets with your real life.

Watch out

If a list of ten ideas leaves you cold, that's not failure — that's data. "None of these" is the start of knowing what you want.