Criticality began with an attractive abundance problem: generate a stream of project ideas and present them in a feed so builders never run out of things to make. It was stopped when abundance became the problem rather than the solution.
The project takes the form of a TikTok-style feed of generated project ideas, now retained mainly as a record of why unconstrained ideation can become a slop generator. Its purpose is to preserve the lesson from an idea generator that began producing volume more readily than value.
The question behind Criticality / IdeaGenerator
An idea can sound novel without identifying a real beneficiary, a verified need, or a path to evidence. As the feed produced more polished concepts, it began to resemble a slop generator for a small audience instead of an engine for useful work. Open-source contributors and learners were the intended audience. They lose time when polished ideas are detached from real people and evidence.
How Criticality / IdeaGenerator took shape
The partial product explored AI-generated prompts, a feed interaction, and lightweight evaluation. My most important contribution was deciding not to confuse output volume with value and reframing the underlying opportunity. I originated the product, evaluated its outputs, recognized the quality failure, and reframed the underlying opportunity.
What the evidence supports
A partial project exists; it was intentionally stopped before becoming a meaningful product. A stronger successor would send agents toward reality: investigate problems experienced by actual people, publish only a few opportunities, and attach sources, constraints, beneficiaries, and a falsifiable first step. The archived project records why grounding must precede ideation.
Generated novelty is not demonstrated usefulness, and an endless feed can optimize for engagement rather than impact. A worthwhile successor would be a daily public-good research agent whose proposals identify a beneficiary, evidence, constraints, and a falsifiable first step.