> When you’re bored, your mind goes to places it wouldn’t otherwise go. Curiosity kicks in. Curiosity is a precursor to learning. Learning engages the brain and is fun. But it’s not fun all the time, some of it is challenging and frustrating (which is good, that’s the process that teaches you).
And I love how I can go from a curious brainfart "hmm, could I do a movie catalogue app that uses a web page + phone camera + OpenAI API to identify physical DVDs by front/back cover instead of trying to find a reliable barcode database" to it actually working in maybe two hours of real time. Just paused the movie I was watching, typed the idea to Claude Code on mobile and kept watching.
After the movie went back to my computer, merged the changes and tested whether it worked. It mostly did. The UI/UX was horrible etc, but the basic idea was functional. It even got some of the movie extras correctly.
I didn't try to turn it into a product, didn't buy a domain for it or advertise it on Reddit or Show HN. But now I know it CAN be done. Curiosity sated.
I don’t see what that has to do with “when did we stop liking to learn”, which is the only point I’m addressing. My point has nothing to do with AI and it doesn’t seem like you actually learned anything from that experiment.
I read it more as response to your argument that it was a lack of curiosity due to over stimulation, which they responded to by citing an example of a time when they were curious while stimulated and chucked something at a vibe-coding agent to satisfy that curiosity.
Yep, now I have the time to satisfy my curiosity in weird things because it doesn't take active time from me that much.
Before all those curiosity brain farts would've just slipped away with "oh well, I'll never have the time to find out".
Wikipedia has scratched the same itch multiple times, but from a different angle. Doing deep dives in weird stuff is so much easier with Wikipedia than it used to be when you had to go to the library and pull books from the shelves for an hour or two.
And I love how I can go from a curious brainfart "hmm, could I do a movie catalogue app that uses a web page + phone camera + OpenAI API to identify physical DVDs by front/back cover instead of trying to find a reliable barcode database" to it actually working in maybe two hours of real time. Just paused the movie I was watching, typed the idea to Claude Code on mobile and kept watching.
After the movie went back to my computer, merged the changes and tested whether it worked. It mostly did. The UI/UX was horrible etc, but the basic idea was functional. It even got some of the movie extras correctly.
I didn't try to turn it into a product, didn't buy a domain for it or advertise it on Reddit or Show HN. But now I know it CAN be done. Curiosity sated.